College 
Lib. 
PS 

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THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


/   0   It 


LANCELOT 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

.  .  .  POEMS .  .  . 
CAPTAIN  CRAIG 

THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  NIGHT 
THE  TOWN  DOWN  THE  RIVER 
THE  MAN  AGAINST  THE  SKY 
MERLIN 

.  .  .  PLAVS  .  .  . 

VAN  ZORN.     A  Comedy  in  Three  Acts 
THE  PORCUPINE.    A  Drama  in  Three  Acts 


LANCELOT 

A   Poem 


BY 

EDWIN  ARLINGTON  ROBINSON 


THOMAS  SELTZER 
1920 

Special  edition  of  450  copies  for  the 
LYRIC  SOCIETY 

NEW  YORK 


COPYRIGHT,  1920, 
BY  THOMAS  SELTZER,  INC. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  February,  1920 
Att  Rights  Reserved 


College 
library 

PS 


LEWIS  ISAACS 


>a  A  r*  r»  /*  ,1  o 

163643 


LANCELOT 

i 

Gawaine,  aware  again  of  Lancelot 
In  the  King's  garden,  coughed  and  followed  him; 
Whereat  he  turned  and  stood  with  folded  arms 
And  jweary-waiting  eyes,  cold  and  half-closeil — 
Hard  eyes,  where  doubts  at  war  with  memories 
Fanned  a  sad  wrath.     "  Why  frown  upon  a  friend? 
Few  live  that  have  too  many,"  Gawaine  said, 
And  wished  unsaid,  so  thinly  came  the  light. 
Between  the  narrowing  lids  at  which  he  gazed. 
"And  who  of  us  are  they  that  name  their  friends?" 
HI 


Lancelot  said.     "They  live  that  have  not  any. 
Why  do  they  live,  Gawaine?    Ask  why,  and 
answer." 

Two  men  of  an  elected  eminence, 
They  stood  for  a  time  silent.    Then  Gawaine, 
Acknowledging  the  ghost  of  what  was  gone, 
Put  out  his  hand:     "Rather,  I  say,  why_ask? 
If  I  be  not  the  friend  of  Lancelot, 
May  I  be  nailed  alive  along  the  ground 
And  emmets  eat  me  dead.    If  I  be  not 
The  friend  of  Lancelot,  may  I  be  fried 

With  other  liars  in  the  pans  of  hell. 

S 
What  item  otherwise  of  immolation 

Your  Darkness,  may  invent,  be  it  mine  to  endure 
And  yours  to  gloat  on.     For  the  time  between, 
Consider  this  thing  you  see  that  is  my  hand. 
[21 


If  once,  it  has  been  yours  a  thousand  times; 
Why  not  again?    Gawaine  has  never  lied 
To  Lancelot;  and  this,_oLaU_wrongjda1jrs — 
This  day  before  the  day  when  you  go  south 
JTojGod  knows  what  accomplishment  of  exile — 
Were  surely  jinjll  day  for  lies  to  find 
J^n  issue  or  a  cause  or  an  occasion. 
King  Ban  your  father  and  King  Lot  my  father, 
Were  they  alive,  would  shake  their  heads  in 

sorrow 

To  see  us  as  we  are,  and  I  shake  mine 
In  wonder.     Will  you  take  my  hand,  or  no? 
Strong  as  I  am,  I  do  not  hold  it  out 
For  ever  and  on  air.    Youjsee — my  hand.** 
Lancelot  gave  his  hand  there  to  Gawaine, 
Who  took  it,  held  it,  and  then  let  it  go, 
Chagrined  with  its  indifference. 
[3] 


"Yes,  Gawaine, 

I  go  tomorrow,  and  I  wish  you  well; 
You  and  your  brothers,  Gareth,  Gaheris, — 
And  Agravaine;  yes,  even  Agravaine, 
Whose  tongue  has  told  all  Camelot  and  all  Britain 
More  lies  than  yet  have  hatched  of  Modred's  envy. 
You  say  that  you  have  never  lied  to  me, 
And  I  believe  it  so.    Let  it  be  so, 
For  now  and  always.    Gawaine,  I  wish  you  well. 
Tomorrow  I  go  south,  as  Merlin  went, 
But  not  for  Merlin's  end.    I  go,  Gawaine, 
And  leave  you  to  your  ways.    There  are  ways 
left/' 

"There  are  three  ways  I  know,  three  famous  ways, 
And  all  in  Holy  Writ,"  Gawaine  said,  smiling: 
"The  snake's  way  and  the  eagle's  way  are  two, 
[4] 


And  then  we  have  a  man's  way  with  a  maid — 
Or  with  a  woman  who  is  not  a  maid. 

Your  late  way  is  to  send  all  women  scudding, 

m     . ,     ,     .  ,,     ,      .  , ,     ,  .       C*~irrtsos) 

To  the  last  flash  of  the  last  cramoisy, 

While  you  go  south  to  find  the  fires  of  God 

Since  we  came  back  again  to  Camelot 

From  our  immortal  Quest — I  came  back  first — 

No  man  has  known  you  for  the  man  you  were 

Before  you  saw  whatever  't  was  you  saw, 

To  make  so  little  of  kings  and  queens  and  friends 

Thereafter.     Modred?    Agravaine?     My  brothers? 

And    what    if    they    be    brothers?      What    are 

brothers, 

If  they  be  not  our  friends,  your  friends  and  mine? 
You  turn  away,  and  my  words  are  no 
•On  your  affection  or  your  memory? 
So  be  it  then  if  so  it  is  to  be. 
[5] 


God  save  you,  Lancelot;  for  by  Saint  Stephen, 
You  are  no  more  the  man  to  save  yourself." 

"Gawaine,  I  do  not  say  that  you  are  wrong, 
Or  that  you  are  ill-seasoned  in  your  lightness; 
You  say  that  all  you  know  is  what  you  saw, 
And  on  your  own  averment  you  saw  nothing. 
Your  spoken  word,  Gawaine,  I  have  not  weighed 
In  those  unhappy  scales  of  inference 
That  have  no  beam  but  one  made  out  of  hates 
And  fears,  and  venomous  conjecturings; 
Your  tongue  is  not  the  sword  that  urges  me 
Now  out  of  Camelot.     Two  other  swords 
There  are  that  are  awake,  and  in  their  scabbards 
Are  parching  for  the  blood  of  Lancelot. 
Yet  I  go  not  away  for  fear  of  them, 
But  for  a  sharper  care.    You  say  the  truth, 
[6] 


But  not  when  you  contend  the  fires  of  God 
Are  my  one  fear, — for  there  is  one  fear  more. 
Therefore  I  go.    Gawaine,  I  wish  you  well." 

"Well-wishing  in  a  way  is  well  enough; 
So,  in  a  way,  is  caution;  so,  in  a  way, 
Are  leeches,  neatherds,  and  astrologers. 
Lancelot,  listen.     Sit  you  down  and  listen: 
You  talk  of  swords  and  fears  and  banishment. 
Two  swords,  you  say;  Modred  and  Agravaine, 
You  mean.     Had  you  meant  Gaheris  and  Gareth, 
Or  willed  an  evil  on  them,  I  should  welcome 
And  hasten  your  farewell.     But  Agravaine 
Hears  little  what  I  say;  his  ears  are  Modred's. 
The  King  is  Modred's  father,  and  the  Queen 
A  prepossession  of  Modred's  lunacy. 
So  much  for  my  two  brothers  whom  you  fear, 
[7] 


Not  fearing  for  yourself.    I  say  to  you, 
Fear  not  for  anything — and  so  be  wise 
And  amiable  again  as  heretofore; 
Let  Modred  have  his  humor,  and  Agravaine 
His  tongue.    The  two  of  them  have  done  their 

worst, 

And  having  done  their  worst,  what  have  they  done? 
A  whisper  now  and  then,  a  chirrup  or  so 
In  corners, — and  what  else?    Ask  what,  and 

answer." 

Still  with  a  frown  that  had  no  faith  in  it, 
Lancelot,  pitying  Gawaine's  lost  endeavour 
To  make  an  evil  jest  of  evidence, 
Sat  fronting  him  with  a  remote  forbearance — 
Whether  for  Gawaine  blind  or  Gawaine  false, 
Or  both,  or  neither,  he  could  not  say  yet, 
[8] 


If  ever;  and  to  himself  he  said  no  more 
Than  he  said  now  aloud:     "What  else,  Gawaine? 
What  else,  am  I  to  say?    Then  ruin,  I  say; 
Destruction,  dissolution,  desolation, 
I  say, — should  I  compound  with  jeopardy  now. 
For  there  are  more  than  whispers  here,  Gawaine: 
The  way  that  we  have  gone  so  long  together 
Has  underneath  our  feet,  without  our  will, 
Become  a  twofold  faring.     Yours,  I  trust, 
May  lead  you  always  on,  as  it  has  led  you, 
To  praise  and  to  much  joy.     Mine,  I  believe, 
Leads  off  to  battles  that  are  not  yet  fought, 
And  to  the  Light  that  once  had  blinded  me. 
When  I  came  back  from  seeing  what  I  saw, 
I  saw  no  place  for  me  in  Camelot. 
There  is  no  place  for  me  in  Camelot. 
There  is  no  place  for  me  save  where  the  Light 
[9] 


May  lead  me;  and  to  that  place  I  shall  go. 

Meanwhile  I  lay  upon  your  soul  no  load 

Of  counsel  or  of  empty  admonition; 

Only  I  ask  of  you,  should  strife  arise 

In  Camelot,  to  remember,  if  you  may, 

That  you've  an  ardor  that  outruns  your  reason, 

Also  a  glamour  that  outshines  your  guile; 

And  you  are  a  strange  hater.     I  know  that; 

And  I'm  in  fortune  that  you  hate  not  me. 

Yet  while  we  have  OUT  sins  to  dream  about, 

Time  has  done  worse  for  time  than  in  our  making; 

Albeit  there  may  be  sundry  falterings 

And  falls  against  us  in  the  Book  of  Man." 

"Praise  Adam,  you  are  mellowing  at  last! 
I've  always  liked  this  world,  and  would  so  still; 
And  if  it  is  your  new  Light  leads  you  on 
[10] 


To  such  an  admirable  gait,  for  God's  sake, 
Follow  it,  follow  it,  follow  it,  Lancelot; 
Follow  it  as  you  never  followed  glory. 
Once  I  believed  that  I  was  on  the  way 
That  you  call  yours,  but  I  came  home  again 
To  Camelot — and  Camelot  was  right, 
For  the  world  knows  its  own  that  knows  not  you; 
You  are  a  thing  too  vaporous  to  be  sharing 
The  carnal  feast  of  life.     You  mow  down  men 
Like  elder-stems,  and  you  leave  women  sighing 
For  one  more  sight  of  you;  but  they  do  wrong. 
You  are  a  man  of  mist,  and  have  no  shadow. 
God  save  you,  Lancelot.     If  I  laugh  at  you, 
I  laugh  in  envy  and  in  admiration." 

The  joyless  evanescence  of  a  smile, 
Discovered  on  the  face  of  Lancelot 
fill 


By  Gawaine's  unrelenting  vigilance, 
Wavered,  and  with  a  sullen  change  went  out; 
And  then  there  was  the  music  of  a  woman 
Laughing  behind  them,  and  a  woman  spoke: 
"Gawaine,  you  said  'God  save  you,  Lancelot.' 
Why  should  He  save  him  any  more  to-day 
Than  on  another  day?     What  has  he  done, 
Gawaine,  that  God  should  save  him?"  Guinevere, 
With  many  questions  in  her  dark  blue  eyes 
And  one  gay  jewel  in  her  golden  hair, 
Had  come  upon  the  two  of  them  unseen, 
Till  now  she  was  a  russet  apparition 
At  which  the  two  arose — one  with  a  dash 
Of  easy  leisure  in  his  courtliness, 
One  with  a  stately  calm  that  might  have  pleased 
The  queen  of  a  strange  land  indifferently. 
The  firm  incisive  languor  of  her  speech, 
[12] 


Heard  once,  was  heard  through  battles :  "  Lancelot, 
What  have  you  done  to-day  that  God  should  save 

you? 
What  has  he  done,  Gawaine,  that  God  should  save 

him? 

I  grieve  that  you  two  pinks  of  chivalry 
Should  be  so  near  me  in  my  desolation, 
And  I,  poor  soul  alone,  know  nothing  of  it. 
What  has  he  done,  Gawaine?" 

With  all  her  poise, 
To  Gawaine's  undeceived  urbanity 
She  was  less  queen  than  woman  for  the  nonce, 
And  in  her  eyes  there  was  a  flickering 
Of  a  still  fear  that  would  not  be  veiled  wholly 
With  any  mask  of  mannered  nonchalance. 
"  What  has  he  done?    Madam,  attend  your  nephew ; 
[131 


And  learn  from  him,  in  your  incertitude, 
That  this  inordinate  man  Lancelot, 
This  engine  of  renown,  this  hewer  down  daily 
Of  potent  men  by  scores  in  our  late  warfare, 
Has  now  inside  his  head  a  foreign  fever 
That  urges  him  away  to  the  last  edge 
Of  everything,  there  to  efface  himself 
In  ecstasy,  and  so  be  done  with  us. 

Hereafter,  peradventure  certain  birds 

I 
Will  perch  in  meditation  on  his  bones, 

Quite  as  if  they  were  some  poor  sailor's  bones, 
Or  felon's  jettisoned,  or  fisherman's, 
Or  fowler's  bones,  or  Mark  of  Cornwall's  bones. 
In  fine,  this  flower  of  men  that  was  our  comrade 
Shall  be  for  us  no  more,  from  this  day  on, 
Than  a  much  remembered  Frenchman  far  away. 
Magnanimously  I  leave  you  now  to  prize 
[14] 


Your  final  sight  of  him;  and  leaving  you, 
I  leave  the  sun  to  shine  for  him  alone, 
Whiles  I  grope  on  to  gloom.     Madam,  farewell; 
And  you,  contrarious  Lancelot,  farewell." 


[15] 


n 

The  flash  of  oak  leaves  over  Guinevere 
That  afternoon,  with  the  sun  going  down, 
Made  memories  there  for  Lancelot,  although 
The  woman  who  in  silence  looked  at  him, 
Now  seemed  his  inventory  of  the  world 
That  he  must  lose,  or  suffer  to  be  lost 
For  love  of  her  who  sat  there  in  the  shade, 
With  oak  leaves  flashing  in  a  golden  light 
Over  her  face  and  over  her  golden  hair. 
[16] 


"Gawaine  has  all  the  graces,  yet  he  knows; 

He  knows  enough  to  be  the  end  of  us, 

If  so  he  would,"  she  said.     "He  knows  and  laughs; 

And  we  are  at  the  mercy  of  a  man 

Who,  if  the  stars  went  out,  would  only  laugh." 

She  looked  away  at  a  small  swinging  blossom, 

And  then  she  looked  intently  at  her  fingers, 

While  a  frown  gathered  slowly  round  her  eyes, 

And  wrinkled  her  white  forehead. 

Lancelot, 

Scarce  knowing  whether  to  himself  he  spoke 
Or  to  the  Queen,  said  emptily:     "As  for  Gawaine, 
My  question  is,  if  any  curious  hind 
Or  knight  that  is  alive  in  Britain  breathing, 
Or  prince,  or  king,  knows  more  of  us,  or  less, 
Than  Gawaine,  in  his  gay  complacency, 
[17] 


Knows  or  believes  he  knows.     There's  over  much 
Of  knowing  in  this  realm  of  many  tongues, 
Where  deeds  are  less  to  those  who  tell  of  them 
Than  are  the  words  they  sow;  and  you  and  I 
Are  like  to  yield  a  granary  of  such  words, 
For  God  knows  what  next  harvesting.     Gawaine 
I  fear  no  more  than  Gareth,  or  Colgrevance; 
So  far  as  it  is  his  to  be  the  friend 
Of  any  man,  so  far  is  he  my  friend — 
Till  I  have  crossed  him  in  some  enterprise 
Unlikely  and  unborn.     So  fear  not  Gawaine, 
But  let  your  primal  care  be  now  for  one 
Whose  name  is  yours." 

The  Queen,  with  her  blue  eyes 
Too  bright  for  joy,  still  gazed  on  Lancelot, 
Who  stared  as  if  in  angry  malediction 
[181 


Upon  the  shorn  grass  growing  at  his  feet. 
"  Why  do  you  speak  as  if  the  grass  had  ears 
And  I  had  none?    What  are  you  saying  now, 
So  darkly  to  the  grass,  of  knights  and  hinds? 
Are  you  the  Lancelot  who  rode,  long  since, 
Away  from  me  on  that  unearthly  Quest, 
Which  left  no  man  the  same  who  followed  it — 
Or  none  save  Gawaine,  who  came  back  so  soon 
That  we  had  hardly  missed  him?"     Faintly  then 
She  smiled  a  little,  more  in  her  defence, 
He  knew,  than  for  misprision  of  a  man 
Whom  yet  she  feared:     "Why  do  you  set  this 

day — 

This  golden  day,  when  all  are  not  so  golden — 
To  tell  me,  with  your  eyes  upon  the  ground, 
That  idle  words  have  been  for  idle  tongues 
And  ears  a  moment's  idle  entertainment? 
[19] 


Have  I  become,  and  all  at  once,  a  thing 

So  new  to  courts,  and  to  the  buzz  they  make, 

That  I  should  hear  no  murmur,  see  no  sign? 

Where  malice  and  ambition  dwell  with  envy, 

They  go  the  farthest  who  believe  the  least; 

So  let  them, — while  I  ask  of  you  again, 

Why  this  day  for  all  this?     Was  yesterday 

A  day  of  ouphes  and  omens?     Was  it  Friday? 

I  don't  remember.     Days  are  all  alike 

When  I  have  you  to  look  on;  when  you  go, 

There  are  no  days  but  hours.     You  might  say  now 

What  Gawaine  said,  and  say  it  in  our  language." 

The  sharp  light  still  was  in  her  eyes,  alive 

And  anxious  with  a  reminiscent  fear. 

Lancelot,  like  a  strong  man  stricken  hard 
With  pain,  looked  up  at  her  unhappily; 
[20] 


And  slowly,  on  a  low  and  final  note, 
Said:     "Gawaine  laughs  alike  at  what  he  knows, 
And  at  the  loose  convenience  of  his  fancy; 
He  sees  in  others  what  his  humor  needs 
To  nourish  it,  and  lives  a  merry  life. 
Sometimes  a  random  shaft  of  his  will  hit 
Nearer  the  mark  than  one  a  wise  man  aims 
With  infinite  address  and  reservation; 
So  has  it  come  to  pass  this  afternoon." 

Blood  left  the  quivering  cheeks  of  Guinevere 
As  color  leaves  a  cloud;  and  where  white  was 
Before,  there  was  a  ghostliness  not  white, 
But  gray;  and  over  it  her  shining  hair 
Coiled  heavily  its  mocking  weight  of  gold. 
The  pride  of  her  forlorn  light-heartedness 
Fled  like  a  storm-blown  feather;  and  her  fear, 
[211 


Possessing  her,  was  all  that  she  possessed. 

She  sought  for  Lancelot,  but  he  seemed  gone. 

There  was  a  strong  man  glowering  in  a  chair 

Before  her,  but  he  was  not  Lancelot, 

Or  he  would  look  at  her  and  say  to  her 

That  Gawaine's  words  were  less  than  chaff  in  the 

wind — 

A  nonsense  about  exile,  birds,  and  bones, 
Born  of  an  indolence  of  empty  breath. 
"Say  what  has  come  to  pass  this  afternoon," 
She  said,  "or  I  shall  hear  you  all  my  life, 
Not  hearing  what  it  was  you  might  have  told." 

He  felt  the  trembling  of  her  slow  last  words, 
And  his  were  trembling  as  he  answered  them: 
"Why  this  day,  why  no  other?    So  you  ask, 
And  so  must  I  in  honor  tell  you  more — 
[221 


For  what  end,  I  have  yet  no  braver  guess 
Than  Modred  has  of  immortality, 
Or  you  of  Gawaine.     Could  I  have  him  alone 
Between  me  and  the  peace  I  cannot  know, 
My  life  were  like  the  sound  of  golden  bells 
Over  still  fields  at  sunset,  where  no  storm 
Should  ever  blast  the  sky  with  fire  again, 
Or  thunder  follow  ruin  for  you  and  me, — 
As  like  it  will,  if  I  for  one  more  day, 
Assume  that  I  see  not  what  I  have  seen, 
See  now,  and  shall  see.    There  are  no  more  lies 
Left  anywhere  now  for  me  to  tell  myself 
That  I  have  not  already  told  myself, 
And  overtold,  until  today  I  seem 
To  taste  them  as  I  might  the  poisoned  fruit 
That  Patrise  had  of  Mador,  and  so  died. 
And  that  same  apple  of  death  was  to  be  food 
[23] 


For  Gawaine;  but  he  left  it  and  lives  on, 

To  make  his  joy  of  living  your  confusion. 

His  life  is  his  religion;  he  loves  life 

With  such  a  manifold  exuberance 

That  poison  shuns  him  and  seeks  out  a  way 

To  wreak  its  evil  upon  innocence. 

There  may  be  chance  in  this,  there  may  be  law. 

Be  what  there  be,  I  do  not  fear  Gawaine." 

The  Queen,  with  an  indignant  little  foot, 
Struck  viciously  the  unoffending  grass 
And  said:     "Why  not  let  Gawaine  go  his  way? 
I'll  think  of  him  no  more,  fear  him  no  more, 
And  hear  of  him  no  more.     I'll  hear  no  more 
Of  any  now  save  one  who  is,  or  was, 
All  men  to  me.    And  he  said  once  to  me 
That  he  would  say  why  this  day,  of  all  days, 
[241 


Was  more  mysteriously  felicitous 
For  solemn  commination  than  another." 
Again  she  smiled,  but  her  blue  eyes  were  telling 
No  more  their  story  of  old  happiness. 

"  For  me  today  is  not  as  other  days," 
He  said,  "because  it  is  the  first,  I  find, 
That  has  empowered  my  will  to  say  to  you 
What  most  it  is  that  you  must  hear  and  heed. 
When  Arthur,  with  a  faith  unfortified, 
Sent  me  alone  of  all  he  might  have  sent, 
That  May-day  to  Leodogran  your  father, 
I  went  away  from  him  with  a  sore  heart; 
For  in  my  heart  I  knew  that  I  should  fail 
My  King,  who  trusted  me  too  far  beyond 
The  mortal  outpost  of  experience. 
And  this  was  after  Merlin's  admonition, 
[25] 


Which  Arthur,  in  his  passion,  took  for  less 

Than  his  inviolable  majesty. 

When  I  rode  in  between  your  father's  guards 

And  heard  his  trumpets  blown  for  my  loud  honor, 

I  sent  my  memory  back  to  Camelot, 

And  said  once  to  myself,  'God  save  the  King!' 

But  the  words  tore  my  throat  and  were  like 

blood 

Upon  my  tongue.    Then  a  great  shout  went  up 
From  shining  men  around  me  everywhere; 
And  I  remember  more  fair  women's  eyes 
Than  there  are  stars  in  autumn,  all  of  them 
Thrown  on  me  for  a  glimpse  of  that  high  knight 
Sir  Lancelot — Sir  Lancelot  of  the  Lake. 
I  saw  their  faces  and  I  saw  not  one 
To  sever  a  tendril  of  my  integrity; 
But  I  thought  once  again,  to  make  myself 
[26] 


Believe  a  silent  lie,  '  God  save  the  King '  .  .  .  . 
I  saw  your  face,  and  there  were  no  more  kings." 

The  sharp  light  softened  in  the  Queen's  blue  eyes, 
And  for  a  moment  there  was  joy  in  them: 
"Was  I  so  menacing  to  the  peace,  I  wonder, 
Of  anyone  else  alive?     But  why  go  back? 
I  tell  you  that  I  fear  Gawaine  no  more; 
And  if  you  fear  him  not,  and  I  fear  not 
What  you  fear  not,  what  have  we  then  to  fear?" 
Fatigued  a  little  with  her  reasoning, 
She  waited  longer  than  a  woman  waits, 
Without  a  cloudy  sign,  for  Lancelot's 
Unhurried  answer:     "Whether  or  not  you  fear, 
Know  always  that  I  fear  for  me  no  stroke 
Maturing  for  the  joy  of  any  knave 
Who  sees  the  world,  with  me  alive  in  it, 
[27] 


A  place  too  crowded  for  the  furtherance 
Of  his  inflammatory  preparations. 
But  Lot  of  Orkney  had  a  wife,  a  dark  one; 
And  rumor  says  no  man  who  gazed  at  her, 
Attentively,  might  say  his  prayers  again 
Without  a  penance  or  an  absolution. 
I  know  not  about  that;  but  the  world  knows 
That  Arthur  prayed  in  vain  once,  if  he  prayed, 
Or  we  should  have  no  Modred  watching  us. 
Know  then  that  what  you  fear  to  call  my  fear 
Is  all  for  you;  and  what  is  all  for  you 
Is  all  for  love,  which  were  the  same  to  me 
As  life — had  I  not  seen  what  I  have  seen. 
But  first  I  am  to  tell  you  what  I  see, 
And  what  I  mean  by  fear.     It  is  yourself 
That  I  see  now;  and  if  I  saw  you  only, 
I  might  forego  again  all  other  service, 
[28] 


And  leave  to  Time,  who  is  Love's  almoner, 
The  benefaction  of  what  years  or  days 
Remaining  might  be  found  unchronicled 
For  two  that  have  not  always  watched  or  seen 
The  sands  of  gold  that  flow  for  golden  hours. 
If  I  saw  you  alone !    But  I  know  now 
That  you  are  never  more  to  be  alone. 
The  shape  of  one  infernal  foul  attendant 
Will  be  for  ever  prowling  after  you, 
To  leer  at  me  like  a  damned  thing  whipped  out 
Of  the  last  cave  in  hell.    You  know  his  name. 
Over  your  shoulder  I  could  see  him  now, 
Adventuring  his  misbegotten  patience 
For  one  destroying  word  in  the  King's  ear — 
The  word  he  cannot  whisper  there  quite  yet, 
Not  having  it  yet  to  say.     If  he  should  say  it, 
Then  all  this  would  be  over,  and  our  days 
[291 


Of  life,  your  days  and  mine,  be  over  with  it. 

No  day  of  mine  that  were  to  be  for  you 

Your  last,  would  light  for  me  a  longer  span 

Than  for  yourself;  and  there  would  be  no  twilight." 

The  Queen's  implacable  calm  eyes  betrayed 
The  doubt  that  had  as  yet  for  what  he  said 
No  healing  answer:     "If  I  fear  no  more 
Gawaine,  I  fear  your  Modred  even  less. 
Your  fear,  you  say,  is  for  an  end  outside 
Your  safety;  and  as  much  as  that  I  grant  you. 
And  I  believe  in  your  belief,  moreover, 
That  some  far-off  unheard-of  retribution 
Hangs  over  Camelot,  even  as  this  oak-bough, 
That  I  may  almost  reach,  hangs  overhead, 
All  dark  now.     Only  a  small  time  ago 
The  light  was  falling  through  it,  and  on  me. 
[30] 


Another  light,  a  longer  time  ago, 
Was  living  in  your  eyes,  and  we  were  happy. 
Yet  there  was  Modred  then  as  he  is  now, 
As  much  a  danger  then  as  he  is  now, 
And  quite  as  much  a  nuisance.     Let  his  eyes 
Have  all  the  darkness  in  them  they  may  hold, 
And  there  will  be  less  left  of  it  outside 
For  fears  to  grope  and  thrive  in.     Lancelot, 
I  say  the  dark  is  not  what  you  fear  most. 
There  is  a  Light  that  you  fear  more  today 
Than  all  the  darkness  that  has  ever  been; 
Yet  I  doubt  not  that  your  Light  will  burn  on 
For  some  time  yet  without  your  ministration. 
I'm  glad  for  Modred, — though  I  hate  his  eyes, — 
That  he  should  hold  me  nearer  to  your  thoughts 
Than  I  should  hold  myself,  I  fear,  without 
him; 

[31] 


I'm  glad  for  Gawaine,  also, — who,  you  tell  me, 
Misled  my  fancy  with  his  joy  of  living." 

Incredulous  of  her  voice  and  of  her  lightness, 

He  saw  now  in  the  patience  of  her  smile 

A  shining  quiet  of  expectancy 

That  made  as  much  of  his  determination 

As  he  had  made  of  giants  and  Sir  Peris. 

"But  I  have  more  to  say  than  you  have  heard," 

He  faltered — "  though  God  knows  what  you  have 

heard 
Should  be  enough." 

"I  see  it  now,"  she  said; 
"  I  see  it  now  as  always  women  must 
Who  cannot  hold  what  holds  them  any  more. 
If  Modred's  hate  were  now  the  only  hazard — 

[32] 


The  only  shadow  between  you  and  me — 
How  long  should  I  be  saying  all  this  to  you, 
Or  you  be  listening?     No,  Lancelot, — no. 
I  knew  it  coming  for  a  longer  time 
Than  you  fared  for  the  Grail.     You  told  yourself, 
When  first  that  wild  light  came  to  make  men  mad 
Round  Arthur's  Table — as  Gawaine  told  himself, 
And  many  another  tired  man  told  himself — 
That  it  was  God,  not  something  new,  that  called  you. 
Well,  God  was  something  new  to  most  of  them, 
And  so  they  went  away.     But  you  were  changing 
Long  before  you,  or  Bors,  or  Percival, 
Or  Galahad  rode  away — or  poor  Gawaine, 
Who  came  back  presently;  and  for  a  time 
Before  you  went — albeit  for  no  long  time — 
I  may  have  made  for  your  too  loyal  patience 
A  jealous  exhibition  of  my  folly — 
[33] 


All  for  those  two  Elaines;  and  one  of  them 
Is  dead,  poor  child,  for  you.     How  do  you  feel, 
You  men,  when  women  die  for  you?     They  do, 
Sometimes,  you  know.    Not  often,  but  sometimes." 

Discomfiture,  beginning  with  a  scowl 
And  ending  in  a  melancholy  smile, 
Crept  over  Lancelot's  face  the  while  he  stared, 
More  like  a  child  than  like  the  man  he  was, 
At  Guinevere's  demure  serenity 
Before  him  in  the  shadow,  soon  to  change 
Into  the  darkness  of  a  darker  night 
Than  yet  had  been  since  Arthur  was  a  king. 
"  What  seizure  of  an  unrelated  rambling 
Do  you  suppose  it  was  that  had  you  then?" 
He  said;  and  with  a  frown  that  had  no  smile 
Behind  it,  he  sat  brooding. 
[341 


The  Queen  laughed, 

And  looked  at  him  again  with  lucent  eyes 
That  had  no  sharpness  in  them;  they  were  soft 

now, 

And  a  blue  light,  made  wet  with  happiness, 
Distilled  from  pain  into  abandonment, 
Shone  out  of  them  and  held  him  while  she  smiled, 
Although  they  trembled  with  a  questioning 
Of  what  his  gloom  foretold:    "All  that  I  saw 
Was  true,  and  I  have  paid  for  what  I  saw — 
More  than  a  man  may  know.     Hear  me,  and  listen: 
You  cannot  put  me  or  the  truth  aside, 
With  half -told  words  that  I  could  only  wish 
No  man  had  said  to  me;  not  you,  of  all  men. 
If  there  were  only  Modred  in  the  way, 
Should  I  see  now,  from  here  and  in  this  light, 
So  many  furrows  over  your  changed  eyes? 
[35] 


Why  do  you  fear  for  me  when  all  my  fears 

Are  for  the  needless  burden  you  take  on? 

To  put  me  far  away,  and  your  fears  with  me, 

Were  surely  no  long  toil,  had  you  the  will 

To  say  what  you  have  known  and  I  have  known 

Longer  than  I  dare  guess.     Have  little  fear: 

Never  shall  I  become  for  you  a  curse 

Laid  on  your  conscience  to  be  borne  for  ever; 

Nor  shall  I  be  a  weight  for  you  to  drag 

On  always  after  you,  as  a  poor  slave 

Drags  iron  at  his  heels.     Therefore,  today, 

These  ominous  reassurances  of  mine 

Would  seem  to  me  to  be  a  waste  of  life, 

And  more  than  life." 

Lancelot's  memory  wandered 
Into  the  blue  and  wistful  distances 
[361 


That  her  soft  eyes  unveiled.    He  knew  their  trick, 
As  he  knew  the  great  love  that  fostered  it, 
And  the  wild  passionate  fate  that  hid  itself 
In  all  the  perilous  calm  of  white  and  gold 
That  was  her  face  and  hair,  and  might  as  well 
Have  been  of  gold  and  marble  for  the  world, 
And  for  the  King.     Before  he  knew,  she  stood 
Behind  him  with  her  warm  hands  on  his  cheeks, 
And  her  lips  on  his  lips;  and  though  he  heard 
Not  half  of  what  she  told,  he  heard  enough 
To  make  as  much  of  it,  or  so  it  seemed, 
As  man  was  ever  told,  or  should  be  told, 
Or  need  be,  until  everything  was  told, 
And  all  the  mystic  silence  of  the  stars 
Had  nothing  more  to  keep  or  to  reveal. 
"If  there  were  only  Modred  in  the  way," 
She  murmured,  "would  you  come  to  me  tonight? 
[371 


The  King  goes  to  Carleon  or  Carlisle, 

Or  some  place  where  there's  hunting.     Would  you 

come, 

If  there  were  only  Modred  in  the  way?" 
She  felt  his  hand  on  hers  and  laid  her  cheek 
Upon  his  forehead,  where  the  furrows  were: 
"All  these  must  go  away,  and  so  must  I — 
Before  there  are  more  shadows.     You  will  come, 
And  you  may  tell  me  everything  you  must 
That  I  must  hear  you  tell  me — if  I  must — 
Of  bones  and  horrors  and  of  horrid  waves 
That  break  for  ever  on  the  world's  last  edge." 


[38] 


Ill 

Lancelot  looked  about  him,  but  he  saw 
No  Guinevere.     The  place  where  she  had  sat 
Was  now  an  empty  chair  that  might  have  been 
The  shadowy  throne  of  an  abandoned  world, 
But  for  the  living  fragrance  of  a  kiss 
That  he  remembered,  and  a  living  voice 
That  hovered  when  he  saw  that  she  was  gone. 
There  was  too  much  remembering  while  he  felt 
Upon  his  cheek  the  warm  sound  of  her  words; 
There  was  too  much  regret;  there  was  too  much 
[39] 


Remorse.     Regret  was  there  for  what  had  gone, 
Remorse  for  what  had  come.     Yet  there  was  time, 
That  had  not  wholly  come.     There  was  time 

enough 

Between  him  and  the  night — as  there  were  shoals 
Enough,  no  doubt,  that  in  the  sea  somewhere 
Were  not  yet  hidden  by  the  drowning  tide. 
"So  there  is  here  between  me  and  the  dark 
Some  twilight  left,"  he  said.     He  sighed,  and  said 
Again,  "Time,  tide,  and  twilight — and  the  dark; 
And  then,  for  me,  the  Light.     But  what  for  her? 
I  do  not  think  of  anything  but  life 
That  I  may  give  to  her  by  going  now; 
And  if  I  look  into  her  eyes  again, 
Or  feel  her  breath  upon  my  face  again, 
God  knows  if  I  may  give  so  much  as  life; 
Or  if  the  durance  of  her  loneliness 
[40] 


Would  have  it  for  the  asking.     What  am  I? 
What  have  I  seen  that  I  must  leave  behind 
So  much  of  heaven  and  earth  to  burn  itself 
Away  in  white  and  gold,  until  in  time 
There  shall  be  no  more  white  and  no  more  gold? 
I  cannot  think  of  such  a  time  as  that; 
I  cannot — yet  I  must;  for  I  am  he 
That  shall  have  hastened  it  and  hurried  on 
To  dissolution  all  that  wonderment — 
That  envy  of  all  women  who  have  said 
She  was  a  child  of  ice  and  ivory; 
And  of  all  men,  save  one.    And  who  is  he? 
Who  is  this  Lancelot  that  has  betrayed 
His  King,  and  served  him  with  a  cankered  honor? 
Who  is  this  Lancelot  that  sees  the  Light 
And  waits  now  in  the  shadow  for  the  dark? 
Who  is  this  King,  this  Arthur,  who  believes 
[411 


That  what  has  been,  and  is,  will  be  for  ever, — 
Who  has  no  eye  for  what  he  will  not  see, 
And  will  see  nothing  but  what's  passing  here 
In  Camelot,  which  is  passing?    Why  are  we  here? 
What  are  we  doing — kings,  queens,  Camelots, 
And  Lancelots?    And  what  is  this  dim  world 
That  I  would  leave,  and  cannot  leave  tonight 
Because  a  Queen  is  in  it  and  a  King 
Has  gone  away  to  some  place  where  there's  hunting — 
Carleon  or  Carlisle !     Who  is  this  Queen, 
This  pale  witch-wonder  of  white  fire  and  gold, 
This  Guinevere  that  I  brought  back  with  me 
From  Cameliard  for  Arthur,  who  knew  then 
What  Merlin  told,  as  he  forgets  it  now 
And  rides  away  from  her — God  watch  the  world! — 
To  some  place  where  there's  hunting!    What  are 
kings? 

[42] 


And  how  much  longer  are  there  to  be  kings? 
When  are  the  millions  who  are  now  like  worms 
To  know  that  kings  are  worms,  if  they  are  worms? 
When  are  the  women  who  make  toys  of  men 
To  know  that  they  themselves  are  less  than  toys 
When  Time  has  laid  upon  their  skins  the  touch 
Of  his  all-shrivelling  fingers?    When  are  they 
To  know  that  men  must  have  an  end  of  them 
When  men  have  seen  the  Light  and  left  the  world 
That  I  am  leaving  now.     Yet  here  I  am, 
And  all  because  a  king  has  gone  a-hunting  .... 
Carleon  or  Carlisle!" 

So  Lancelot 

Fed  with  a  sullen  rancor,  which  he  knew 
To  be  as  false  as  he  was  to  the  King, 
The  passion  and  the  fear  that  now  in  him 
[43] 


Were  burning  like  two  slow  infernal  fires 

That  only  flight  and  exile  far  away 

From  Camelot  should  ever  cool  again. 

"Yet  here  I  am,"  he  said, — "and  here  I  am. 

Time,  tide,  and  twilight;  and  there  is  no  twilight — 

And  there  is  not  much  time.     But  there's  enough 

To  eat  and  drink  in;  and  there  may  be  time 

For  me  to  frame  a  jest  or  two  to  prove 

How  merry  a  man  may  be  who  sees  the  Light. 

And  I  must  get  me  up  and  go  along, 

Before  the  shadows  blot  out  everything, 

And  leave  me  stumbling  among  skeletons. 

God,  what  a  rain  of  ashes  falls  on  him 

Who  sees  the  new  and  cannot  leave  the  old!" 

He  rose  and  looked  away  into  the  south 
Where  a  gate  was,  by  which  he  might  go  out, 
[44] 


Now,  if  he  would,  while  Time  was  yet  there  with 

him — 

Time  that  was  tearing  minutes  out  of  life 
While  he  stood  shivering  in  his  loneliness, 
And  while  the  silver  lights  of  memory 
Shone  faintly  on  a  far-off  eastern  shore 
Where  he  had  seen  on  earth  for  the  last  time 
The  triumph  and  the  sadness  in  the  face 
Of  Galahad,  for  whom  the  Light  was  waiting. 
Now  he  could  see  the  face  of  him  again, 
He  fancied;  and  his  flickering  will  adjured  him 
To  follow  it  and  be  free.     He  followed  it 
Until  it  faded  and  there  was  no  face, 
And  there  was  no  more  light.     Yet  there  was  time 
That  had  not  come,  though  he  could  hear  it  now 
Like  ruining  feet  of  marching  conquerors 
That  would  be  coming  soon  and  were  not  men. 
[45] 


Forlornly  and  unwillingly  he  came  back 
To  find  the  two  dim  chairs.     In  one  of  them 
Was  Guinevere,  and  on  her  phantom  face 
There  fell  a  golden  light  that  might  have  been 
The  changing  gleam  of  an  unchanging  gold 
That  was  her  golden  hair.    He  sprang  to  touch 
The  wonder  of  it,  but  she  too  was  gone, 
Like  Galahad;  he  was  alone  again 
With  shadows,  and  one  face  that  he  still  saw. 
The  world  had  no  more  faces  now  than  one 
That  for  a  moment,  with  a  flash  of  pain, 
Had  shown  him  what  it  is  that  may  be  seen 
In  embers  that  break  slowly  into  dust, 
Where  for  a  time  was  fire.     He  saw  it  there 
Before  him,  and  he  knew  it  was  not  good 
That  he  should  learn  so  late,  and  of  this  hour, 
What  men  may  leave  behind  them  in  the  eyes 
[46] 


Of  women  who  have  nothing  more  to  give, 

And  may  not  follow  after.    Once  again 

He  gazed  away  to  southward,  but  the  face 

Of  Galahad  was  not  there.     He  turned,  and  saw 

Before  him,  in  the  distance,  many  lights 

In  Arthur's  palace;  for  the  dark  had  come 

To  Camelot,  while  Time  had  come  and  gone. 


[47] 


IV 

Not  having  viewed  Carleon  or  Carlisle, 
The  King  came  home  to  Camelot  after  midnight, 
Feigning  an  ill  not  feigned;  and  his  return 
Brought  Bedivere,  and  after  him  Gawaine, 
To  the  King's  inner  chamber,  where  they  waited 
Through  the  grim  light  of  dawn.     Sir  Bedivere, 
By  nature  stern  to  see,  though  not  so  bleak 
Within  as  to  be  frozen  out  of  mercy, 
Sat  with  arms  crossed  and  with  his  head  weighed 
low 

[48] 


In  heavy  meditation.     Once  or  twice 
His  eyes  were  lifted  for  a  careful  glimpse 
Of  Gawaine  at  the  window,  where  he  stood 
Twisting  his  fingers  feverishly  behind  him, 
Like  one  distinguishing  indignantly, 
For  swift  eclipse  and  for  offence  not  his, 
The  towers  and  roofs  and  the  sad  majesty 
Of  Camelot  in  the  dawn,  for  the  last  time. 

Sir  Bedivere,  at  last,  with  a  long  sigh 
That  said  less  of  his  pain  than  of  his  pity, 
Addressed  the  younger  knight  who  turned  and 

heard 

His  elder,  but  with  no  large  eagerness: 
"So  it  has  come,  Gawaine;  and  we  are  here. 
I  find  when  I  see  backward  something  farther, 
By  grace  of  time,  than  you  ate  given  to  see — 
[49] 


Though  you,  past  any  doubt,  see  much  that  I 
See  not — I  find  that  what  the  colder  speech 
Of  reason  most  repeated  says  to  us 
Of  what  is  in  a  way  to  come  to  us 
Is  like  enough  to  come.    And  we  are  here. 
Before  the  unseeing  sun  is  here  to  mock  us, 
Or  the  King  here  to  prove  us,  we  are  here. 
We  are  the  two,  it  seems,  that  are  to  make 
Of  words  and  of  our  presences  a  veil 
Between  him  and  the  sight  of  what  he  does. 
Little  have  I  to  say  that  I  may  tell  him: 
For  what  I  know  is  what  the  city  knows, 
Not  what  it  says, — for  it  says  everything. 
The  city  says  the  first  of  all  who  met 
The  sword  of  Lancelot  was  Colgrevance, 
Who  fell  dead  while  he  wept — a  brave  machine, 
Cranked  only  for  the  rudiments  of  war. 
[50] 


But  some  of  us  are  born  to  serve  and  shift, 
And  that's  not  well.    The  city  says,  also, 
That  you  and  Lancelot  were  in  the  garden, 
Before  the  sun  went  down." 

"Yes,"  Gawaine  groaned; 
"Yes,  we  were  there  together  in  the  garden, 
Before  the  sun  went  down;  and  I  conceive 
A  place  among  the  possibilities 
For  me  with  other  causes  unforeseen 
Of  what  may  shake  down  soon  to  grief  and  ashes 
This  kingdom  and  this  empire.     Bedivere, 
Could  I  have  given  a  decent  seriousness 
To  Lancelot  while  he  said  things  to  me 
That  pulled  the  heart  half  out  of  him  by  the  roots, 
And  left  him,  I  see  now,  half  sick  with  pity 
For  my  poor  uselessness  to  serve  a  need 
[51] 


That  I  had  never  known,  we  might  be  now 
Asleep  and  easy  in  our  beds  at  home, 
^.nd  we  might  hear  no  murmurs  after  sunrise 
Of  what  we  are  to  hear.     A  few  right  words 
Of  mine,  if  said  well,  might  have  been  enough. 
That  shall  I  never  know.     I  shall  know  only 
That  it  was  I  who  laughed  at  Lancelot 
When  he  said  what  lay  heaviest  on  his  heart. 
By  now  he  might  be  far  away  from  here, 
And  farther  from  the  world.     But  the  Queen  came; 
The  Queen  came,  and  I  left  them  there  together; 
And  I  laughed  as  I  left  them.     After  dark 
I  met  with  Modred  and  said  what  I  could, 
When  I  had  heard  him,  to  discourage  him. 
His  mother  was  my  mother.     I  told  Bors, 
And  he  told  Lancelot;  though  as  for  that, 
My  story  would  have  been  the  same  as  his, 
[521 


And  would  have  had  the  same  acknowledgment: 
'Thanks,  but  no  matter' — or  to  that  effect. 
The  Queen,  of  course,  had  fished  him  for  his  word, 
And  had  it  on  the  hook  when  she  went  home; 
And  after  that,  an  army  of  red  devils 
Could  not  have  held  the  man  away  from  her. 
And  I'm  to  live  as  long  as  I'm  to  wonder 
What  might  have  been,  had  I  not  been — myself. 
I  heard  him,  and  I  laughed.    Then  the  Queen 
came." 

"Recriminations  are  not  remedies, 
Gawaine;  and  though  you  cast  them  at  yourself, 
And  hurt  yourself,  you  cannot  end  or  swerve 
The  flowing  of  these  minutes  that  leave  hours 
Behind  us,  as  we  leave  our  faded  selves 
And  yesterdays.    The  surest-visioned  of  us 
[531 


Are  creatures  of  our  dreams  and  inferences, 
And  though  it  look  to  us  a  few  go  far 
For  seeing  far,  the  fewest  and  the  farthest 
Of  all  we  know  go  not  beyond  themselves. 
No,  Gawaine,  you  are  not  the  cause  of  this; 
And  I  have  many  doubts  if  what  you  said, 
Or  what  you  in  your  lightness  left  unsaid, 
Would  have  unarmed  the  Queen.    The  Queen  was 

coming." — 

Gawaine  looked  up,  and  then  looked  down  again: 
"Good  God,  if  I  had  only  said — said  something!" 

"Say  nothing  now,  Gawaine."    Bedivere  sighed, 
And  shook  his  head:     "Morning  is  not  in  the  west. 
The  sun  is  rising  and  the  King  is  coming; 
Now  you  may  hear  him  in  the  corridor, 
Like  a  sick  landlord  shuffling  to  the  light 
[54] 


For  one  last  look-out  on  his  mortgaged  hills. 
But  hills  and  valleys  are  not  what  he  sees; 
He  sees  with  us  the  fire — the  sign — the  law. 
The  King  that  is  the  father  of  the  law 
Is  weaker  than  his  child,  except  he  slay  it. 
Not  long  ago,  Gawaine,  I  had  a  dream 
Of  a  sword  over  kings,  and  of  a  world 
Without  them." — "Dreams,  dreams." — "Hush, 
Gawaine." 

King  Arthur 

Came  slowly  on  till  in  the  darkened  entrance 
He  stared  and  shivered  like  a  sleep-walker, 
Brought  suddenly  awake  where  a  cliff's  edge 
Is  all  he  sees  between  another  step 
And  his  annihilation.    Bedivere  rose, 
And  Gawaine  rose;  and  with  instinctive  arms 
[551 


They  partly  guided,  partly  carried  him, 
To  the  King's  chair. 

"I  thank  you,  gentlemen, 
Though  I  am  not  so  shaken,  I  dare  say, 
As  you  would  have  me.    This  is  not  the  hour 
When  kings  who  do  not  sleep  are  at  their  best; 
And  had  I  slept  this  night  that  now  is  over, 
No  man  should  ever  call  me  King  again>" 
He  pulled  his  heavy  robe  around  him  closer, 
And  laid  upon  his  forehead  a  cold  hand 
That  came  down  warm  and  wet.     "  You,  Bedivere, 
And  you,  Gawaine,  are  shaken  with  events 
Incredible  yesterday, — but  kings  are  men. 
Take  off  their  crowns  and  tear  away  their  color 
And  let  them  see  with  my  eyes  what  I  see — 
Yes,  they  are  men,  indeed!    If  there's  a  slave 
[561 


In  Britain  with  a  reptile  at  his  heart 
Like  mine  that  with  his  claws  of  ice  and  fire 
Tears  out  of  me  the  fevered  roots  of  mercy, 
Find  him,  and  I  will  make  a  king  of  him! 
And  then,  so  that  his  happiness  may  swell 
Tenfold,  I'll  sift  the  beauty  of  all  courts 
And  capitals,  to  fetch  the  fairest  woman 
That  evil  has  in  hiding;  after  that, 
That  he  may  know  the  sovran  one  man  living 
To  be  his  friend,  I'll  prune  all  chivalry 
To  one  sure  knight.     In  this  wise  our  new  king 
Will  have  his  queen  to  love,  as  I  had  mine, — 
His  friend  that  he  may  trust,  as  I  had  mine, — 
And  he  will  be  as  gay,  if  all  goes  well, 
As  I  have  been:  as  fortunate  in  his  love, 
And  in  his  friend  as  fortunate — as  I  am! 
And  what  am  I?  ...  And  what  are  you — you  two! 
[57] 


If  you  are  men,  why  don't  you  say  I'm  dreaming? 
I  know  men  when  I  see  them,  I  know  daylight; 
And  I  see  now  the  gray  shine  of  our  dreams. 
I  tell  you  I'm  asleep  and  in  my  bed!  .... 
But  no — no  ....  I  remember.     You  are  men. 
You  are  no  dreams — but  God,  God,  if  you  were! 
If  I  were  strong  enough  to  make  you  vanish 
And  have  you  back  again  with  yesterday — 
Before  I  lent  myself  to  that  false  hunting, 
Which  yet  may  stalk  the  hours  of  many  more 
Than  Lancelot's  unhappy  twelve  who  died, — 
With  a  misguided  Colgrevance  to  lead  them, 
And  Agravaine  to  follow  and  fall  next, — 
Then  should  I  know  at  last  that  I  was  King, 
And  I  should  then  be  King.     But  kings  are  men, 
And  I  have  gleaned  enough  these  two  years  gone 
To  know  that  queens  are  women.     Merlin  told  me: 
[58] 


'The  love  that  never  was.'     Two  years  ago 

He  told  me  that:     'The  love  that  never  was!' 

I  saw — but  I  saw  nothing.     Like  the  bird 

That  hides  his  head,  I  made  myself  see  nothing. 

But  yesterday  I  saw — and  I  saw  fire. 

I  think  I  saw  it  first  in  Modred's  eyes; 

Yet  he  said  only  truth — and  fire  is  right. 

It  is — it  must  be  fire.    The  law  says  fire. 

And  I,  the  King  who  made  the  law,  say  fire! 

What  have  I  done — what  folly  have  I  said, 

Since  I  came  here,  of  dreaming?     Dreaming?    Ha! 

I  wonder  if  the  Queen  and  Lancelot 

Are  dreaming!  ....  Lancelot!    Have  they  found 

him  yet? 

He  slashed  a  way  into  the  outer  night — 
Somewhere  with  Bors.    We'll  have  him  here  anon, 
And  we  shall  feed  him  also  to  the  fire. 
[591 


There  are  too  many  faggots  lying  cold 
That  might  as  well  be  cleansing,  for  our  good, 
A  few  deferred  infections  of  our  state 
That  honor  should  no  longer  look  upon. 
Thank  heaven,  I  man  my  drifting  wits  again! 
Gawaine,  your  brothers,  Gareth  and  Gaheris, 
Are  by  our  royal  order  there  to  see 
And  to  report.     They  went  unwillingly, 
For  they  are  new  to  law  and  young  to  justice; 
But  what  they  are  to  see  will  harden  them 
With  wholesome  admiration  of  a  realm 
Where  treason's  end  is  ashes.    Ashes.    Ashes! 
Now  this  is  better.     I  am  King  again. 
Forget,  I  pray,  my  drowsy  temporizing, 
For  I  was  not  then  properly  awake  .... 
What?     Hark!     Whose  crass  insanity  is  that! 
If  I  be  King,  go  find  the  fellow  and  hang  him 
[60] 


Who  beats  into  the  morning  on  that  bell 
Before  there  is  a  morning!     This  is  dawn! 
What!    Bedivere?    Gawaine?    You  shake  your 

heads? 

I  tell  you  this  is  dawn!  ....  What  have  I  done? 
What  have  I  said  so  lately  that  I  flinch 
To  think  on!    What  have  I  sent  those  boys  to  see? 
I'll  put  clouts  on  my  eyes,  and  I'll  not  see  it! 
Her  face,  and  hands,  and  little  small  white  feet, 
And  all  her  shining  hair  and  her  warm  body — 
No— for  the  love  of  God,  no! — it's  alive! 
She's  all  alive,  and  they  are  burning  her — 
The  Queen — the  love — the  love  that  never  was! 
Gawaine!    Bedivere!    Gawaine! — Where  is 

Gawaine! 

Is  he  there  in  the  shadow?    Is  he  dead? 
Are  we  all  dead?    Are  we  in  hell? — Gawaine!  .  .  . 
[611 


I  cannot  see  her  now  in  the  smoke.     Her  eyes 
Are  what  I  see — and  her  white  body  is  burning! 
She  never  did  enough  to  make  me  see  her 
Like  that — to  make  her  look  at  me  like  that! 
There's  not  room  in  the  world  for  so  much  evil 
As  I  see  clamoring  in  her  poor  white  face 
For  pity.    Pity  her,  God!    God!  .  .  .  Lancelot!" 


[62] 


Gawaine,  his  body  trembling  and  his  heart 
Pounding  as  if  he  were  a  boy  in  battle, 
Sat  crouched  as  far  away  from  everything 
As  walls  would  give  him  distance.     Bedivere 
Stood  like  a  man  of  stone  with  folded  arms, 
And  wept  in  stony  silence.    The  King  moved 
His  pallid  lips  and  uttered  fitfully 
Low  fragments  of  a  prayer  that  was  half  sad, 
Half  savage,  and  was  ended  in  a  crash 
Of  distant  sound  that  anguish  lifted  near 
To  those  who  heard  it.    Gawaine  sprang  again 
[631 


To  the  same  casement  where  the  towers  and  roofs 

Had  glimmered  faintly  a  long  hour  ago, 

But  saw  no  terrors  yet — though  now  he  heard 

A  fiercer  discord  than  allegiance  rings 

To  rouse  a  mourning  city :  blows,  groans,  cries, 

Loud  iron  struck  on  iron,  horses  trampling, 

Death-yells  and  imprecations,  and  at  last 

A  moaning  silence.     Then  a  murmuring 

Of  eager  fearfulness,  which  had  a  note 

Of  exultation  and  astonishment, 

Came  nearer,  till  a  tumult  of  hard  feet 

Filled  the  long  corridor  where  late  the  King 

Had  made  a  softer  progress. 

"Well  then,  Lucan," 
The  King  said,  urging  an  indignity 
To  qualify  suspense;  "For  what  arrears 

[641 


Of  grace  are  we  in  debt  for  this  attention? 
Why  all  this  early  stirring  of  our  sentries, 
And  their  somewhat  unseasoned  innovation, 
To  bring  you  at  this  unappointed  hour? 
Are  we  at  war  with  someone  or  another, 
Without  our  sanction  or  intelligence? 
Are  Lucius  and  the  Romans  here  to  greet  us, 
Or  was  it  Lucius  we  saw  dead?" 

Sir  Lucan 

Bowed  humbly  in  amazed  acknowledgment 
Of  his  intrusion,  meanwhile  having  scanned 
What  three  grief -harrowed  faces  were  revealing: 
"  Praise  God,  sir,  there  are  tears  in  the  King's  eyes, 
And  in  his  friends'.     Having  regarded  them, 
And  having  ventured  an  abrupt  appraisal 
Of  what  I  translate  ..." 

[65] 


"Lucan,"  the  King  said, 
"  No  matter  what  procedure  or  persuasion 
Gave  you  an  entrance — tell  us  what  it  is 
That  you  have  come  to  tell  us,  and  no  more. 
There  was  a  most  uncivil  sound  abroad 
Before  you  came.     Who  riots  in  the  city?" 

Sir,  will  your  patience  with  a  clement  ear, 
Attend  the  confirmation  of  events, 
I  will,  with  all  available  precision, 
Say  what  this  morning  has  inaugurated. 
No  preface  or  prolonged  exordium 
Need  aggravate  the  narrative,  I  venture. 
The  man  of  God,  requiring  of  the  Queen 
A  last  assoiling  prayer  for  her  salvation, 
Heard  what  none  else  did  hear  save  God  the 
Father; 

[661 


Then  a  great  hush  descended  on  a  scene 
Where  stronger  men  than  I  fell  on  their  knees, 
And  wet  with  tears  their  mail  of  shining  iron 
That  soon  was  to  be  cleft  unconscionably 
Beneath  a  blast  of  anguish  as  intense 
And  fabulous  in  ardor  and  effect 
As  Jove's  is  in  his  lightning.     To  be  short, 
They  led  the  Queen — and  she  went  bravely  to  it, 
Or  so  she  was  configured  in  the  picture — 
A  brief  way  more;  and  we  who  did  see  that, 
Believed  we  saw  the  last  of  all  her  sharing 
In  this  conglomerate  and  perplexed  existence. 
But  no — and  here  the  prodigy  comes  in — 
The  penal  flame  had  hardly  bit  the  faggot, 
When,  like  an  onslaught  out  of  Erebus, 
There  came  a  crash  of  horses,  and  a  flash 
Of  axes,  and  a  hewing  down  of  heroes, 
[67] 


Not  like  to  any  in  its  harsh,  profound, 
Unholy,  and  uneven  execution. 
I  felt  the  breath  of  one  horse  on  my  neck, 
And  of  a  sword  that  all  but  left  a  chasm 
Where  still,  praise  be  to  God,  I  have  intact 
A  face,  if  not  a  fair  one.     I  achieved 
My  flight,  I  trust,  with  honorable  zeal, 
Not  having  arms,  or  mail,  or  preservation 
In  any  phase  of  necessary  iron. 
I  found  a  refuge;  and  there  saw  the  Queen, 
All  white,  and  in  a  swound  of  woe  uplif ted 
By  Lionel,  while  a  dozen  fought  about  him, 
And  Lancelot,  who  seized  her  while  he  struck, 
And  with  his  insane  army  galloped  away, 
Before  the  living,  whom  he  left  amazed, 
Were  sure  they  were  alive  among  the  dead. 
Not  even  in  the  legendary  mist 
[681 


Of  wars  that  none  today  may  verify, 
Did  ever  men  annihilate  their  kind 
With  a  more  vicious  inhumanity, 
Or  a  more  skilful  frenzy.     Lancelot 
And  all  his  heated  adjuncts  are  by  now 
Too  far,  I  fear,  for  such  immediate 
Reprisal  as  your  majesty  perchance  ..." 

"O'  God's  name,  Lucan,"  the  King  cried,  "be  still!" 
He  gripped  with  either  sodden  hand  an  arm 
Of  his  unyielding  chair,  while  his  eyes  blazed 
In  anger,  wonder,  and  fierce  hesitation. 
Then  with  a  sigh  that  may  have  told  unheard 
Of  an  unwilling  gratitude,  he  gazed 
Upon  his  friends  who  gazed  again  at  him; 
But  neither  King  nor  friend  said  anything 
Until  the  King  turned  once  more  to  Sir  Lucan: 
[691 


"Be  still,  or  publish  with  a  shorter  tongue 
The  names  of  our  companions  who  are  dead. 
Well,  were  you  there?    Or  did  you  run  so  fast 
That  you  were  never  there?    You  must  have  eyes, 
Or  you  could  not  have  run  to  find  us  here." 

Then  Lucan,  with  a  melancholy  glance 
At  Gawaine,  who  stood  glaring  his  impatience, 
Addressed  again  the  King:     "I  will  be  short,  sir; 
Too  brief  to  measure  with  finality 
The  scope  of  what  I  saw  with  indistinct 
Amazement  and  incredulous  concern. 
Sir  Tor,  Sir  Griflet,  and  Sir  Aglovale 
Are  dead.     Sir  Gillimer,  he  is  dead.     Sir — Sir — 
But  should  a  living  error  be  detailed 
In  my  account,  how  should  I  meet  your  wrath 
For  such  a  false  addition  to  your  sorrow?" 
[70] 


He  turned  again  to  Gawaine,  who  shook  now 

As  if  the  fear  in  him  were  more  than  fury. — 

The  King,  observing  Gawaine,  beat  his  foot 

In  fearful  hesitancy  on  the  floor: 

"No,  Lucan;  if  so  kind  an  error  lives 

In  your  dead  record,  you  need  have  no  fear. 

My  sorrow  has  already,  in  the  weight 

Of  this  you  tell,  too  gross  a  task  for  that." 

"Then  I  must  offer  you  cold  naked  words, 
Without  the  covering  warmth  of  even  one 
Forlorn  alternative,"  said  Lucan,  slowly: 
"Sir  Gareth,  and  Sir  Gaheris — are  dead." 

The  rage  of  a  fulfilled  expectancy, 
Long  tortured  on  a  rack  of  endless  moments, 
Flashed  out  of  Gawaine's  overflowing  eyes 
[71] 


While  he  flew  forward,  seizing  Lucan's  arms, 
And  hurled  him  while  he  held  him.  —  "Stop, 

Gawaine," 

The  King  said  grimly.     "Now  is  no  time  for  that. 
If  Lucan,  in  a  too  bewildered  heat 
Of  observation  or  sad  reckoning, 
Has  added  life  to  death,  our  joy  therefor 
Will  be  the  larger.    You  have  lost  yourself." 

"More  than  myself  it  is  that  I  have  lost," 
Gawaine  said,  with  a  choking  voice  that  faltered: 
"Forgive  me,  Lucan;  I  was  a  little  mad. 
Gareth? — and  Gaheris?    Do  you  say  their  names, 
And  then  say  they  are  dead!    They  had  no  arms — 
No  armor.    They  were  like  you — and  you  live! 
Why  do  you  live  when  they  are  dead !     You  ran, 
You  say?     Well,  why  were  they  not  running — 
[721 


If  they  ran  only  for  a  pike  to  die  with? 
I  knew  my  brothers,  and  I  know  your  tale 
Is  not  all  told.     Gareth? — and  Gaheris? 
Would  they  stay  there  to  die  like  silly  children? 
Did  they  believe  the  King  would  have  them  die 
For  nothing?    There  are  dregs  of  reason,  Lucan, 
In  lunacy  itself.    My  brothers,  Lucan, 
Were  murdered  like  two  dogs.    Who  murdered 
them?" 

Lucan  looked  helplessly  at  Bedivere, 
The  changeless  man  of  stone,  and  then  at  Gawaine: 
"I  cannot  use  the  word  that  you  have  used, 
Though  yours  must  have  an  answer.    Your  two 

brothers 

Would  not  have  squandered  or  destroyed  them 
selves 

[73] 


In  a  vain  show  of  action.     I  pronounce  it, 

If  only  for  their  known  obedience 

To  the  King's  instant  wish.    Know  then  your 

brothers 

Were  caught  and  crowded,  this  way  and  then  that, 
With  men  and  horses  raging  all  around  them; 
And  there  were  swords  and  axes  everywhere 
That  heads  of  men  were.     Armored  and  unarmored, 
They  knew  the  iron  alike.     In  so  great  press, 
Discrimination  would  have  had  no  pause 
To  name  itself;  and  therefore  Lancelot 
Saw  not — or  seeing,  he  may  have  seen  too  late — 
On  whom  his  axes  fell." 

"Why  do  you  flood 

The  name  of  Lancelot  with  worcls  enough 
To  drown  him  and  his  army — and  his  axes!  .  .  . 
[74] 


His  axes? — or  his  axe!    Which,  Lucan?    Speak! 
Speak,  or  by  God  you'll  never  speak  again!  .  .  . 
Forgive  me,  Lucan;  I  was  a  little  mad. 
You,  sir,  forgive  me;  and  you,  Bedivere. 
There  are  too  many  currents  in  this  ocean 
Where  I'm  adrift,  and  I  see  no  land  yet. 
Men  tell  of  a  great  whirlpool  in  the  north 
Where  ships  go  round  until  the  men  aboard 
Go  dizzy,  and  are  dizzy  when  they're  drowning. 
But  whether  I'm  to  drown  or  find  the  shore, 
There  is  one  thing — and  only  one  thing  now — 
For  me  to  know  ....  His  axes?  or  his  axe! 
Say,  Lucan,  or  I — O  Lucan,  speak — speak — speak ! 
Lucan,  did  Lancelot  kill  my  two  brothers?" 

"  I  say  again  that  in  all  human  chance 
He  knew  not  upon  whom  his  axe  was  falling." 
[75] 


"So!     Then  it  was  his  axe  and  not  his  axes. 
It  was  his  hell-begotten  self  that  did  it, 
And  it  was  not  his  men.     Gareth!     Gaheris! 
You  came  too  soon.     There  was  no  place  for  you 
Where  there  was  Lancelot.     My  folly  it  was, 
Not  yours,  to  take  for  true  the  inhuman  glamour 
Of  his  high-shining  fame  for  that  which  most 
Was  not  the  man.     The  truth  we  see  too  late 
Hides  half  its  evil  in  our  stupidity; 
And  we  gape  while  we  groan  for  what  we  learn. 
An  hour  ago  and  I  was  all  but  eager 
To  mourn  with  Bedivere  for  grief  I  had 
That  I  did  not  say  something  to  this  villain — 
To  this  true,  gracious,  murderous  friend  of  mine — 
To  comfort  him  and  urge  him  out  of  this, 
While  I  was  half  a  fool  and  half  believed 
That  he  was  going.     Well,  there  is  this  to  say: 
[76] 


The  world  that  has  him  will  not  have  him  long. 
You  see  how  calm  I  am,  now  I  have  said  it? 
And  you,  sir,  do  you  see  how  calm  I  am? 
And  it  was  I  who  told  of  shipwrecks — whirlpools- 
Dro wiling!     I  must  have  been  a  little  mad, 
Not  haling  occupation.     Now  I  have  one. 
And  I  have  now  a  tongue  as  many-phrased 
As  Lucan's.     Gauge  it,  Lucan,  if  you  will; 
Or  take  my  word.     It's  all  one  thing  to  me — 
All  one,  all  one!    There's  only  one  thing  left  .  .  . 
Gareth  and  Gaheris!    Gareth! .  .  .  Lancelot!" 

"Look,  Bedivere,"  the  King  said:  "look  to 

Gawaine. 

Now  lead  him,  you  and  Lucan,  to  a  chair — 
As  you  and  Gawaine  led  me  to  this  chair 
Where  I  am  sitting.     We  may  all  be  led, 
[771 


If  there  be  coming  on  for  Camelot 
Another  day  like  this.    Now  leave  me  here, 
Alone  with  Gawaine.     When  a  strong  man  goes 
Like  that,  it  makes  him  sick  to  see  his  friends 
Around  him.     Leave  us,  and  go  now.     Sometimes 
I'll  scarce  remember  that  he's  not  my  son, 
So  near  he  seems.    I  thank  you,  gentlemen." 

The  King,  alone  with  Gawaine,  who  said  nothing, 
Had  yet  no  heart  for  news  of  Lancelot 
Or  Guinevere.     He  saw  them  on  their  way 
To  Joyous  Gard,  where  Tristram  and  Isolt 
Had  islanded  of  old  their  stolen  love, 
While  Mark  of  Cornwall  entertained  a  vengeance 
Envisaging  an  ending  of  all  that; 
And  he  could  see  the  two  of  them  together 
As  Mark  had  seen  Isolt  there,  and  her  knight, — 
[781 


Though  not,  like  Mark,  with  murder  in  his  eyes. 
He  saw  them  as  if  they  were  there  already, 
And  he  were  a  lost  thought  long  out  of  mind; 
He  saw  them  lying  in  each  other's  arms, 
Oblivious  of  the  living  and  the  dead 
They  left  in  Camelot.    Then  he  saw  the  dead 
That  lay  so  quiet  outside  the  city  walls, 
And  wept,  and  left  the  Queen  to  Lancelot — 
Or  would  have  left  her,  had  the  will  been  his 
To  leave  or  take;  for  now  he  could  acknowledge 
An  inrush  of  a  desolate  thanksgiving 
That  she,  with  death  around  her,  had  not  died. 
The  vision  of  a  peace  that  humbled  him, 
And  yet  might  save  the  world  that  he  had  won, 
Came  slowly  into  view  like  something  soft 
And  ominous  on  all-fours,  without  a  spirit 
To  make  it  stand  upright.     "  Better  be  that, 
[79] 


Even  that,  than  blood,"  he  sighed,  "if  that  be 

peace.'* 

But  looking  down  on  Gawaine,  who  said  nothing, 
He  shook  his  head:     "The  King  has  had  his  world, 
And  he  shall  have  no  peace.     With  Modred  here, 
And  Agravaine  with  Gareth,  who  is  dead 
With  Gaheris,  Gawaine  will  have  no  peace. 
Gawaine  or  Modred — Gawaine  with  his  hate, 
Or  Modred  with  his  anger  for  his  birth, 
And  the  black  malady  of  his  ambition — 
Will  make  of  my  Round  Table,  where  was  drawn 
The  circle  of  a  world,  a  thing  of  wreck 
And  yesterday — a  furniture  forgotten; 
And  I,  who  loved  the  world  as  Merlin  did, 
May  lose  it  as  he  lost  it,  for  a  love 
That  was  not  peace,  and  therefore  was  not  love." 


80 


VI 

The  dark  of  Modred's  hour  not  yet  availing, 
Gawaine  it  was  who  gave  the  King  no  peace; 
Gawaine  it  was  who  goaded  him  and  drove  him 
To  Joyous  Gard,  where  now  for  long  his  army, 
Disheartened  with  unprofitable  slaughter, 
Fought  for  their  weary  King  and  wearily 
Died  fighting.     Only  Gawaine's  hate  it  was 
That  held  the  King's  knights  and  his  warrior 

slaves 

Close-hived  in  exile,  dreaming  of  old  scenes 
[811 


Where  Sorrow,  and  her  demon  sister  Fear, 

Now  shared  the  dusty  food  of  loneliness, 

From  Orkney  to  Cornwall.    There  was  no  peace, 

Nor  could  there  be,  so  Gawaine  told  the  King, 

And  so  the  King  in  anguish  told  himself, 

Until  there  was  an  end  of  one  of  them — 

Of  Gawaine  or  the  King,  or  Lancelot, 

Who  might  have  had  an  end,  as  either  knew, 

Long  since  of  Arthur  and  of  Gawaine  with  him. 

One  evening  in  the  moonlight  Lancelot 
And  Bors,  his  kinsman,  and  the  loyalest, 
If  least  assured,  of  all  who  followed  him, 
Sat  gazing  from  an  ivy-cornered  casement 
In  angry  silence  upon  Arthur's  horde, 
Who  in  the  silver  distance,  without  sound, 
Were  dimly  burying  dead  men.     Sir  Bors, 
[82J 


Reiterating  vainly  what  was  told 
As  wholesome  hearing  for  unhearing  ears, 
Said  now  to  Lancelot:     "And  though  it  be 
For  no  more  now  than  always,  let  me  speak: 
You  have  a  pity  for  the  King,  you  say, 
That  is  not  hate;  and  for  Gawaine  you  have 
A  grief  that  is  not  hate.     Pity  and  grief! 
And  the  Queen  all  but  shrieking  out  her  soul 
That  morning  when  we  snatched  her  from  the 

faggots 

That  were  already  crackling  when  we  came! 
Why,  Lancelot,  if  in  you  is  an  answer, 
Have  you  so  vast  a  charity  for  the  King, 
And  so  enlarged  a  grief  for  his  gay  nephew, 
Whose  tireless  hate  for  you  has  only  one 
Disastrous  appetite?     You  know  for  what — 
For  your  slow  blood.     I  knew  you,  Lancelot, 
[83] 


When  all  this  would  have  been  a  merry  fable 
For  smiling  men  to  yawn  at  and  forget, 
As  they  forget  their  physic.     Pity  and  grief 
Are  in  your  eyes.     I  see  them  well  enough; 
And  I  saw  once  with  you,  in  a  far  land, 
The  glimmering  of  a  Light  that  you  saw  nearer — 
Too  near  for  your  salvation  or  advantage, 
If  you  be  what  you  seem.     What  I  saw  then 
Made  life  a  wilder  mystery  than  ever, 
And  earth  a  new  illusion.     You,  maybe, 
Saw  pity  and  grief.     What  I  saw  was  a  Gleam, 
To  fight  for  or  to  die  for — till  we  know 
Too  much  to  fight  or  die.     Tonight  you  turn 
A  page  whereon  your  deeds  are  to  engross 
Inexorably  their  story  of  tomorrow; 
And  then  tomorrow.     How  many  of  these 
tomorrows 

[84] 


Are  coming  to  ask  unanswered  why  this  war 
Was  fought  and  fought  for  the  vain  sake  of 

slaughter? 

Why  carve  a  compost  of  a  multitude, 
When  only  two,  discriminately  despatched, 
Would  sum  the  end  of  what  you  know  is  ending, 
And  leave  to  you  the  scorch  of  no  more  blood 
Upon  your  blistered  soul?    The  Light  you  saw 
Was  not  for  this  poor  crumbling  realm  of  Arthur, 
Nor  more  for  Rome;  but  for  another  state 
That  shall  be  neither  Rome  nor  Camelot, 
Nor  one  that  we  may  name.     WThy  longer,  then, 
Are  you  and  Gawaine  to  anoint  with  war, 
That  even  in  hell  would  be  superfluous, 
A  reign  already  dying,  and  ripe  to  die? 
I  leave  you  to  your  last  interpretation 
Of  what  may  be  the  pleasure  of  your  madness.'* 
[851 


Meanwhile  a  mist  was  hiding  the  dim  work 
Of  Arthur's  men;  and  like  another  mist, 
All  gray,  came  Guinevere  to  Lancelot, 
Whom  Bors  had  left,  not  having  had  of  him 
The  largess  of  a  word.     She  laid  her  hands 
Upon  his  hair,  vexing  him  to  brief  speech: 
"And  you — are  you  like  Bors?" 

"I  may  be  so," 

She  said;  and  she  saw  faintly  where  she  gazed, 
Like  distant  insects  of  a  shadowy  world, 
Dim  clusters  here  and  there  of  shadowy  men 
Whose  occupation  was  her  long  abhorrence: 
"  If  he  came  here  and  went  away  again, 
And  all  for  nothing,  I  may  be  like  Bors. 
Be  glad,  at  least,  that  I  am  not  like  Mark 
Of  Cornwall,  who  stood  once  behind  a  man 
[861 


And  slew  him  without  saying  he  was  there. 

Not  Arthur,  I  believe,  nor  yet  Gawaine, 

Would  have  done  quite  like  that;  though  only  God 

May  say  what  there's  to  come  before  this  war 

Shall  have  an  end — unless  you  are  to  see, 

As  I  have  seen  so  long,  a  way  to  end  it." 

He  frowned,  and  watched  again  the  coming  mist 
That  hid  with  a  cold  veil  of  augury 
The  stillness  of  an  empire  that  was  dying: 
"And  are  you  here  to  say  that  if  I  kill 
Gawaine  and  Arthur  we  shall  both  be  happy?" 

"Is  there  still  such  a  word  as  happiness? 
I  come  to  tell  you  nothing,  Lancelot, 
That  folly  and  waste  have  not  already  told  you. 
Were  you  another  man  than  Lancelot, 
[87] 


I  might  say  folly  and  fear.     But  no — no  fear, 
As  I  know  fear,  was  yet  composed  and  wrought, 
By  man,  for  your  delay  and  your  undoing. 
God  knows  how  cruelly  and  how  truly  now 
You  might  say,  that  of  all  who  breathe  and  suffer 
There  may  be  others  who  are  not  so  near 
To  you  as  I  am,  and  so  might  say  better 
What  I  say  only  with  a  tongue  not  apt 
Or  guarded  for  much  argument.     A  woman, 
As  men  have  known  since  Adam  heard  the  first 
Of  Eve's  interpreting  of  how  it  was 
In  Paradise,  may  see  but  one  side  only — 
Where  maybe  there  are  two,  to  say  no  more. 
Yet  here,  for  you  and  me,  and  so  for  all 
Caught  with  us  in  this  lamentable  net, 
I  see  but  one  deliverance;  I  see  none, 
Unless  you  cut  for  us  a  clean  way  out, 
[88] 


So  rending  these  hate-woven  webs  of  horror 
Before  they  mesh  the  world.    And  if  the  world 
Of  Arthur's  name  be  now  a  dying  glory, 
Why  bleed  it  for  the  sparing  of  a  man 
Who  hates  you,  and  a  King  that  hates  himself? 
If  war  be  war — and  I  make  only  blood 
Of  your  red  writing — why  dishonor  Time 
For  torture  longer  drawn  in  your  slow  game 
Of  empty  slaughter?    Tomorrow  it  will  be 
The  King's  move,  I  suppose,  and  we  shall  have 
One  more  magnificent  waste  of  nameless  pawns, 
And  of  a  few  more  knights.     God,  how  you  love 
This  game! — to  make  so  loud  a  shambles  of  it, 
When  you  have  only  twice  to  lift  your  finger 
To  signal  peace,  and  give  to  this  poor  drenched 
And  clotted  earth  a  time  to  heal  itself. 
Twice  over  I  say  to  you,  if  war  be  war, 
[89] 


Why  play  with  it?     Why  look  a  thousand  ways 
Away  from  what  it  is,  only  to  find 
A  few  stale  memories  left  that  would  requite 
Your  tears  with  your  destruction?     Tears,  I  say, 
For  I  have  seen  your  tears;  I  see  them  now, 
Although  the  moon  is  dimmer  than  it  was 
Before  I  came.     I  wonder  if  I  dimmed  it. 
I  wonder  if  I  brought  this  fog  here  with  me 
To  make  you  chillier  even  than  you  are 
When  I  am  not  so  near  you.  .  .  .  Lancelot, 
There  must  be  glimmering  yet  somewhere  within 

you 

The  last  spark  of  a  little  willingness 
To  tell  me  why  it  is  this  war  goes  on. 
Once  I  believed  you  told  me  everything; 
And  what  you  may  have  hidden  was  no  matter, 
For  what  you  told  was  all  I  needed  then. 
[90] 


But  crumbs  that  are  a  festival  for  joy 

Make  a  dry  fare  for  sorrow;  and  the  few 

Spared  words  that  were  enough  to  nourish  faith, 

Are  for  our  lonely  fears  a  frugal  poison. 

So,  Lancelot,  if  only  to  bring  back 

For  once  the  ghost  of  a  forgotten  mercy, 

Say  now,  even  though  you  strike  me  to  the  floor 

When  you  have  said  it,  for  what  untold  end 

All  this  goes  on.     Am  I  not  anything  now? 

Is  Gawaine,  who  would  feed  you  to  wild  swine, 

And  laugh  to  see  them  tear  you,  more  than  I  am? 

Is  Arthur,  at  whose  word  I  was  dragged  out 

To  wear  for  you  the  fiery  crown  itself 

Of  human  torture,  more  to  you  than  I  am? 

Am  I,  because  you  saw  death  touch  me  once, 

Too  gross  a  trifle  to  be  longer  prized? 

Not  many  days  ago,  when  you  lay  hurt 

foil 


And  aching  on  your  bed,  and  I  cried  out 
Aloud  on  heaven  that  I  should  bring  you  there, 
You  said  you  would  have  paid  the  price  of  hell 
To  save  me  that  foul  morning  from  the  fire. 
You  paid  enough;  yet  when  you  told  me  that, 
With  death  going  on  outside  the  while  you  said  it, 
I  heard  the  woman  in  me  asking  why. 
Nor  do  I  wholly  find  an  answer  now 
In  any  shine  of  any  far-off  Light 
You  may  have  seen.    Knowing  the  world,  you 

know 

How  surely  and  how  indifferently  that  Light 
Shall  burn  through  many  a  war  that  is  to  be, 
To  which  this  war  were  no  more  than  a  smear 
On  circumstance.     The  world  has  not  begun. 
The  Light  you  saw  was  not  the  Light  of  Rome, 
Or  Time,  though  you  seem  battling  here  for  time, 
[92] 


While  you  are  still  at  war  with  Arthur's  host 
And  Gawaine's  hate.     How  many  thousand  men 
Are  going  to  their  death  before  Gawaine 
And  Arthur  go  to  theirs — and  I  to  mine?" 

Lancelot,  looking  off  into  the  fog, 
That  held  what  seemed  to  be  the  watery  light 
Of  a  dissolving  moon,  sighed  without  hope 
Of  saying  what  the  Queen  would  have  him  say: 
"  I  fear,  my  lady,  my  fair  nephew  Bors, 
Whose  tongue  affords  a  random  wealth  of  sound, 
May  lately  have  been  scattering  on  the  air 
For  you  a  music  less  oracular 
Than  to  your  liking  ....  Say,  then,  you  had  split 
The  uncovered  heads  of  two  men  with  an  axe, 
Not  knowing  whose  heads — if  that's  a  palliation — 
And  seen  their  brains  fly  out  and  splash  the  ground 
[93] 


As  they  were  common  offal,  and  then  learned 
That  you  had  butchered  Gaheris  and  Gareth — 
Gareth,  who  had  for  me  a  greater  love 
Than  any  that  has  ever  trod  the  ways 
Of  a  gross  world  that  early  would  have  crushed  him, — 
Even  you,  in  your  quick  fever  of  dispatch, 
Might  hesitate  before  you  drew  the  blood 
Of  him  that  was  their  brother,  and  my  friend. 
Yes,  he  was  more  my  friend,  was  I  to  know, 
Than  I  had  said  or  guessed;  for  it  was  Gawaine 
Who  gave  to  Bors  the  word  that  might  have  saved  us, 
And  Arthur's  fading  empire,  for  the  time 
Till  Modred  had  in  his  dark  wormy  way 
Crawled  into  light  again  with  a  new  ruin 
At  work  in  that  occult  snake's  brain  of  his. 
And  even  in  your  prompt  obliteration 
Of  Arthur  from  a  changing  world  that  rocks 
[941 


Itself  into  a  dizziness  around  him, 
A  moment  of  attendant  reminiscence 
Were  possible,  if  not  likely.    Had  he  made 
A  knight  of  you,  scrolling  your  name  with  his 
Among  the  first  of  men — and  in  his  love 
Inveterately  the  first — and  had  you  then 
Betrayed  his  fame  and  honor  to  the  dust 
That  now  is  choking  him,  you  might  in  time — 
You  might,  I  say — to  my  degree  succumb. 
Forgive  me,  if  my  lean  words  are  for  yours 
Too  bare  an  answer,  and  ascribe  to  them 
No  tinge  of  allegation  or  reproach. 
What  I  said  once  to  you  I  said  for  ever — 
That  I  would  pay  the  price  of  hell  to  save  you. 
As  for  the  Light,  leave  that  for  me  alone; 
Or  leave  as  much  of  it  as  yet  for  me 
May  shine.     Should  I,  through  any  unforeseen 
[951 


Remote  effect  of  awkwardness  or  chance, 
Be  done  to  death  or  durance  by  the  King, 
I  leave  some  writing  wherein  I  beseech 
For  you  the  clemency  of  afterthought. 
Were  I  to  die  and  he  to  see  me  dead, 
My  living  prayer,  surviving  the  cold  hand 
That  wrote,  would  leave  you  in  his  larger  prudence, 
If  I  have  known  the  King,  free  and  secure 
To  bide  the  summoning  of  another  King 
More  great  than  Arthur.     But  all  this  is  language; 
And  I  know  more  than  words  have  yet  the  scope 
To  show  of  what's  to  come.     Go  now  to  rest; 
And  sleep,  if  there  be  sleep.     There  was  a  moon; 
And  now  there  is  no  sky  where  the  moon  was. 
Sometimes  I  wonder  if  this  be  the  world 
We  live  in,  or  the  world  that  lives  in  us." — 
The  new  day,  with  a  cleansing  crash  of  rain 
[96] 


That  washed  and  sluiced  the  soiled  and  hoof -torn  field 
Of  Joyous  Gard,  prepared  for  Lancelot 
And  his  wet  men  the  not  unwelcome  scene 
Of  a  drenched  emptiness  without  an  army. 
"Our  friend  the  foe  is  given  to  dry  fighting, 
Said  Lionel,  advancing  with  a  shrug, 
To  Lancelot,  who  saw  beyond  the  rain. 
And  later  Lionel  said,  "What  fellows  are  they, 
Who  are  so  thirsty  for  their  morning  ride 
That  swimming  horses  would  have  hardly  time 
To  eat  before  they  swam?    You,  Lancelot, 
If  I  see  rather  better  than  a  blind  man, 
Are  waiting  on  three  pilgrims  who  must  love  you, 
To  voyage  a  flood  like  this.     No  friend  have  I, 
To  whisper  not  of  three,  on  whom  to  count 
For  such  a  loyal  wash.     The  King  himself 
Would  entertain  a  kindly  qualm  or  so, 
[97] 


Before  he  suffered  such  a  burst  of  heaven 
To  splash  even  three  musicians." 

"Good  Lionel, 

I  thank  you,  but  you  need  afflict  your  fancy 
No  longer  for  my  sake.     For  these  who  come, 
If  I  be  not  immoderately  deceived, 
Are  bearing  with  them  the  white  flower  of  peace — 
Which  I  could  hope  might  never  parch  or  wither, 
Were  I  a  stranger  to  this  ravening  world 
Where  we  have  mostly  a  few  rags  and  tags 
Between  our  skins  and  those  that  wrap  the  flesh 
Of  less  familiar  brutes  we  feed  upon 
That  we  may  feed  the -more  on  one  another." 

"  Well,  now  that  we  have  had  your  morning  grace 
Before  our  morning  meat,  pray  tell  to  me 
[981 


The  why  and  whence  of  this  anomalous 
Horse-riding  offspring  of  the  Fates.     Who  are  they?" 

"I  do  not  read  their  features  or  their  names; 
But  if  I  read  the  King,  they  are  from  Rome, 
Spurred  here  by  the  King's  prayer  for  no  delay; 
And  I  pray  God  aloud  that  I  say  true." 

And  after  a  long  watching,  neither  speaking, 
"You  do,"  said  Lionel;  "for  by  my  soul, 
I  see  no  other  than  my  lord  the  Bishop, 
Who  does  God's  holy  work  in  Rochester. 
Since  you  are  here,  you  may  as  well  abide  here, 
While  I  go  foraging." 

Now  in  the  gateway, 
The  Bishop,  who  rode  something  heavily, 
[99] 


Was  glad  for  rest  though  grim  in  his  refusal 
At  once  of  entertainment  or  refection : 
"  What  else  you  do,  Sir  Lancelot,  receive  me 
As  one  among  the  honest  when  I  say 
That  my  voluminous  thanks  were  less  by  cantos 
Than  my  damp  manner  feels.    Nay,  hear  my  voice : 
If  once  I'm  off  this  royal  animal, 
How  o'  God's  name  shall  I  get  on  again? 
Moreover,  the  King  waits.     With  your  accord, 
Sir  Lancelot,  I'll  dry  my  rainy  face, 
While  you  attend  what's  herein  written  down, 
In  language  of  portentous  brevity, 
For  the  Bang's  gracious  pleasure  and  for  yours, 
Whereof  the  burden  is  the  word  of  Rome, 
Requiring  your  deliverance  of  the  Queen 
Not  more  than  seven  days  hence.    The  King  returns 
Anon  to  Camelot;  and  I  go  with  him, 
[1001 


Praise  God,  if  what  he  waits  now  is  your  will 
To  end  an  endless  war.     No  recrudescence, 
As  you  may  soon  remark,  of  what  is  past 
Awaits  the  Queen,  or  any  doubt  soever 
Of  the  King's  mercy.     Have  you  more  to  say 
Than  Rome  has  written,  or  do  I  perceive 
Your  tranquil  acquiescence?     Is  it  so? 
Then  be  it  so!    Venite.     Pax  vobiscum." 

"To  end  an  endless  war  with  'pax  vobiscum' 
Would  seem  a  ready  schedule  for  a  bishop; 
Would  God  that  I  might  see  the  end  of  it !" 
Lancelot,  like  a  statue  in  a  gateway, 
Regarded  with  a  qualified  rejoicing 
The  fading  out  of  his  three  visitors 
Into  the  cold  and  swallowing  wall  of  storm 
Between  him  and  the  battle-wearied  King 
[101] 


And  the  unwearying  hatred  of  Gawaine. 

To  Bors  his  nephew,  and  to  Lionel, 

He  glossed  a  tale  of  Roman  intercession, 

Knowing  that  for  a  time,  and  a  long  time, 

The  sweetest  fare  that  he  might  lay  before  them 

WTould  hold  an  evil  taste  of  compromise. 

To  Guinevere,  who  questioned  him  at  noon 

Of  what  by  then  had  made  of  Joyous  Gard 

A  shaken  hive  of  legend-heavy  wonder, 

He  said  what  most  it  was  the  undying  Devil, 

Who  ruled  him  when  he  might,  would  have  him 

say: 

"  Your  confident  arrangement  of  the  board 
For  this  day's  game  was  notably  not  to  be; 
Today  was  not  for  the  King's  move  or  mine, 
But  for  the  Bishop's;  and  the  board  is  empty. 
The  words  that  I  have  waited  for  more  days 
[102] 


Than  are  to  now  my  tallage  of  gray  hairs 
Have  come  at  last,  and  at  last  you  are  free. 
So,  for  a  time,  there  will  be  no  more  war; 
And  you  are  going  home  to  Camelot." 

"To  Camelot?"  .  .  . 

"To  Camelot."     But  his  words 
Were  said  for  no  queen's  hearing.     In  his  arms 
He  caught  her  when  she  fell;  and  in  his  arms 
He  carried  her  away.     The  word  of  Rome 
Was  in  the  rain.     There  was  no  other  sound. 


[103 


vn 

All  day  the  rain  came  down  on  Joyous  Gard, 
Where  now  there  was  no  joy,  and  all  that  night 
The  rain  came  down.     Shut  in  for  none  to  find  him. 
Where  an  unheeded  log-fire  fought  the  storm 
With  upward  swords  that  flashed  along  the  wall 
Fault  hieroglyphs  of  doom  not  his  to  read, 
Lancelot  found  a  refuge  where  at  last 
He  might  see  nothing.     Glad  for  sight  of  nothing, 
He  saw  no  more.     Now  and  again  he  buried 
A  lonely  thought  among  the  coals  and  ashes 
[104] 


Outside  the  reaching  flame  and  left  it  there, 
Quite  as  he  left  outside  in  rainy  graves 
The  sacrificial  hundreds  who  had  filled  them. 
"They  died,  Gawaine,"  he  said,  "and  you  live  on, 
You  and  the  King,  as  if  there  were  no  dying; 
And  it  was  I,  Gawaine,  who  let  you  live — 
You  and  the  King.     For  what  more  length  of  time, 
I  wonder,  may  there  still  be  found  on  earth 
Foot-room  for  four  of  us?     We  are  too  many 
For  one  world,  Gawaine;  and  there  may  be  soon, 
For  one  or  other  of  us,  a  way  out. 
As  men  are  listed,  we  are  men  for  men 
To  fear;  and  I  fear  Modred  more  than  any. 
But  even  the  ghost  of  Modred  at  the  door — 
The  ghost  I  should  have  made  him — would  employ 
For  time  as  hard  as  this  a  louder  knuckle, 
Assuredly  now,  than  that.     And  I  would  see 
[105] 


No  mortal  face  till  morning.  .  .  Well,  are  you  well 
Again?    Are  you  as  well  again  as  ever?" 

He  led  her  slowly  on  with  a  cold  show 
Of  care  that  was  less  heartening  for  the  Queen 
Than  anger  would  have  been,  into  the  firelight, 
And  there  he  gave  her  cushions.     "Are  you 

warm?" 

He  said;  and  she  said  nothing.     "Are  you  afraid?" 
He  said  again;  "are  you  still  afraid  of  Gawaine? 
As  often  as  you  think  of  him  and  hate  him, 
Remember  too  that  he  betrayed  his  brothers 
To  us  that  he  might  save  us.     Well,  he  saved  us 
And  Rome,  whose  name  to  you  was  never  music, 
Saves  you  again,  with  heaven  alone  may  tell 
What  others  who  might  have  their  time  to  sleep 
In  earth  out  there,  with  the  rain  falling  on  them, 
[106] 


And  with  no  more  to  fear  of  wars  tonight 

Than  you  need  fear  of  Gawaine  or  of  Arthur. 

The  way  before  you  is  a  safer  way 

For  you  to  follow  than  when  I  was  in  it. 

We  children  who  forget  the  whips  of  Time, 

To  live  within  the  hour,  are  slow  to  see 

That  all  such  hours  are  passing.     They  were  past 

When  you  came  here  with  me." 

She  looked  away, 

Seeming  to  read  the  firelight  on  the  walls 
Before  she  spoke:     "When  I  came  here  with  you, 
And  found  those  eyes  of  yours,  I  could  have  wished 
And  prayed  it  were  the  end  of  hours,  and  years. 
What  was  it  made  you  save  me  from  the  fire, 
If  only  out  of  memories  and  forebodings 
To  build  around  my  life  another  fire 
[107] 


Of  slower  faggots?     If  you  had  let  me  die, 
Those  other  faggots  would  be  ashes  now, 
And  all  of  me  that  you  have  ever  loved 
Would  be  a  few  more  ashes.     If  I  read 
The  past  as  well  as  you  have  read  the  future 
You  need  say  nothing  of  ingratitude, 
For  I  say  only  lies.     My  soul,  of  course, 
It  was  you  loved.     You  told  me  so  yourself. 
And  that  same  precious  blue- veined  cream-white 

soul 

Will  soon  be  safer,  if  I  understand  you, 
In  Camelot,  where  the  King  is,  than  elsewhere 
On  earth.     What  more,  in  faith,  have  I  to  ask 
Of  earth  or  heaven  than  that!    Although  I  fell 
When  you  said  Camelot,  are  you  to  know 
For  sure  the  stroke  you  gave  me  then  was  not 
The  measure  itself  of  ecstasy?     We  women 
[108] 


Are  such  adept  inveterates  in  our  swooning 

That  we  fall  down  for  joy  as  easily 

As  we  eat  one  another  to  show  our  love. 

Even  horses,  seeing  again  their  absent  masters, 

Have  wept  for  joy;  great  dogs  have  died  of  it." 

Having  said  as  much  as  that,  she  frowned  and  held 

Her  small  white  hands  out  for  the  fire  to  warm 

them. 

Forward  she  leaned,  and  forward  her  thoughts  went — 
To  Camelot.     But  they  were  not  there  long, 
Her  thoughts;  for  soon  she  flashed  her  eyes  again, 
And  he  found  in  them  what  he  wished  were  tears 
Of  angry  sorrow  for  what  she  had  said. 
"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  me?"  she  asked; 
And  all  her  old  incisiveness  came  back, 
With  a  new  thrust  of  malice,  which  he  felt 
And  feared.     "What  are  you  going  to  do  with  me? 
[109] 


What  does  a  child  do  with  a  worn-out  doll? 

I  was  a  child  once;  and  I  had  a  father. 

He  was  a  king;  and,  having  royal  ways, 

He  made  a  queen  of  me — King  Arthur's  queen. 

And  if  that  happened,  once  upon  a  time, 

Why  may  it  not  as  well  be  happening  now 

That  I  am  not  a  queen?     Was  I  a  queen 

When  first  you  brought  me  here  with  one  torn  rag 

To  cover  me?    Was  I  overmuch  a  queen 

When  I  sat  up  at  last,  and  in  a  gear 

That  would  have  made  a  bishop  dance  to  Cardiff 

To  see  me  wearing  it?    Was  I  Queen  then?" 

"You  were  the  Queen  of  Christendom,"  he  said, 
Not  smiling  at  her,  "whether  now  or  not 
You  deem  it  an  unchristian  exercise 
To  vilipend  the  wearing  of  the  vanished. 
[110] 


The  women  may  have  reasoned,  insecurely, 
That  what  one  queen  had  worn  would  please 

another. 
I  left  them  to  their  ingenuities." 

Once  more  he  frowned  away  a  threatening  smile, 
But  soon  forgot  the  memory  of  all  smiling 
While  he  gazed  on  the  glimmering  face  and  hair 
Of  Guinevere — the  glory  of  white  and  gold 
That  had  been  his,  and  were,  for  taking  of  it, 
Still  his,  to  cloud,  with  an  insidious  gleam 
Of  earth,  another  that  was  not  of  earth, 
And  so  to  make  of  him  a  thing  of  night — 
A  moth  between  a  window  and  a  star, 
Not  wholly  lured  by  one  or  led  by  the  other. 
The  more  he  gazed  upon  her  beauty  there, 
The  longer  was  he  living  in  two  kingdoms, 
[1111 


Not  owning  in  his  heart  the  king  of  either, 
And  ruling  not  himself.     There  was  an  end 
Of  hours,  he  told  her  silent  face  again, 
In  silence.     On  the  morning  when  his  fury 
Wrenched  her  from  that  foul  fire  in  Camelot, 
Where  blood  paid  irretrievably  the  toll 
Of  her  release,  the  whips  of  Time  had  fallen 
Upon  them  both.     All  this  to  Guinevere 
He  told  in  silence  and  he  told  in  vain. 

Observing  her  ten  fingers  variously, 
She  sighed,  as  in  equivocal  assent, 
No  two  queens  are  alike." 


"XT 


"Is  that  the  flower 

Of  all  your  veiled  invention?"  Lancelot  said, 
Smiling  at  last:    "If  you  say,  saying  all  that, 
[112] 


You  are  not  like  Isolt — well,  you  are  not 

Isolt  was  a  physician,  who  cured  men 

Their  wounds,  and  sent  them  rowelling  for  more; 

Isolt  was  too  dark,  and  too  versatile; 

She  was  too  dark  for  Mark,  if  not  for  Tristram. 

Forgive  me;  I  was  saying  that  to  myself, 

And  not  to  make  you  shiver.     No  two  queens — 

Was  that  it? — are  alike?     A  longer  story 

Might  have  a  longer  telling  and  tell  less. 

Your  tale's  as  brief  as  Pelleas  with  his  vengeance 

On  Gawaine,  whom  he  swore  that  he  would  slay 

At  once  for  stealing  of  the  lady  Ettard." 

"Treasure  my  scantling  wits,  if  you  enjoy  them; 
Wonder  a  little,  too,  that  I  conserve  them 
Through  the  eternal  memory  of  one  morning, 
•And  in  these  years  of  days  that  are  the  death 
[113] 


Of  men  who  die  for  me.    I  should  have  died. 
I  should  have  died  for  them." 

"You  are  wrong,"  he  said; 

"They  died  because  Gawaine  went  mad  with  hate 
For  loss  of  his  two  brothers  and  set  the  King 
On  fire  with  fear,  the  two  of  them  believing 
His  fear  was  vengeance  when  it  was  in  fact 
A  royal  desperation.    They  died  because 
Your  world,  my  world,  and  Arthur's  world  is  dying, 
As  Merlin  said  it  would.    No  blame  is  yours; 
For  it  was  I  who  led  you  from  the  King — 
Or  rather,  to  say  truth,  it  was  your  glory 
That  led  my  love  to  lead  you  from  the  King — 
By  flowery  ways,  that  always  end  somewhere, 
To  fire  and  fright  and  exile,  and  release. 
And  if  you  bid  your  memory  now  to  blot 

[1141 


Your  story  from  the  book  of  what  has  been, 
Your  phantom  happiness  were  a  ghost  indeed, 
And  I  the  least  of  weasels  among  men, — 
Too  false  to  manhood  and  your  sacrifice 
To  merit  a  niche  in  hell.     If  that  were  so, 
I'd  swear  there  was  no  light  for  me  to  follow, 
Save  your  eyes  to  the  grave;  and  to  the  last 
I  might  not  know  that  all  hours  have  an  end; 
I  might  be  one  of  those  who  feed  themselves 
By  grace  of  God,  on  hopes  dryer  than  hay, 
Enjoying  not  what  they  eat,  yet  always  eating. 
The  Vision  shattered,  a  man's  love  of  living 
Becomes  at  last  a  trap  and  a  sad  habit, 
More  like  an  ailing  dotard's  love  of  liquor 
That  ails  him,  than  a  man's  right  love  of  woman, 
Or  of  his  God.     There  are  men  enough  like  that, 
And  I  might  come  to  that.     Though  I  see  far 
[115] 


Before  me  now,  could  I  see,  looking  back, 

A  life  that  you  could  wish  had  not  been  lived, 

I  might  be  such  a  man.     Could  I  believe 

Our  love  was  nothing  mightier  then  than  we  were, 

I  might  be  such  a  man — a  living  dead  man, 

One  of  these  days." 

Guinevere  looked  at  him, 
And  all  that  any  woman  has  not  said 
Was  in  one  look:     "Why  do  you  stab  me  now 
With  such  a  needless  'then'?     If  I  am  going — 
And  I  suppose  I  am — are  the  words  all  lost 
That  men  have  said  before  to  dogs  and  children 
To  make  them  go  away?     Why  use  a  knife, 
When  there  are  words  enough  without  your  '  then ' 
To  cut  as  deep  as  need  be?    What  I  ask  you 
Is  never  more  to  ask  me  if  my  life 
[1161 


Be  one  that  I  could  wish  had  not  been  lived — 
And  that  you  never  torture  it  again, 
To  make  it  bleed  and  ache  as  you  do  now. 
Past  all  indulgence  or  necessity. 
Were  you  to  give  a  lonely  child  who  loved  you 
One  living  thing  to  keep — a  bird,  may  be — 
Before  you  went  away  from  her  forever, 
Would  you,  for  surety  not  to  be  forgotten, 
Maim  it  and  leave  it  bleeding  on  her  fingers? 
And  would  you  leave  the  child  alone  with  it — 
Alone,  and  too  bewildered  even  to  cry, 
Till  you  were  out  of  sight?     Are  you  men  never 
To  know  what  words  are?    Do  you  doubt  some 
times 

A  Vision  that  lets  you  see  so  far  away 
That  you  forget  so  lightly  who  it  was 
You  must  have  cared  for  once  to  be  so  kind — 
[117] 


Or  seem  so  kind — when  she,  and  for  that  only, 
Had  that  been  all,  would  throw  down  crowns  and 

glories 

To  share  with  you  the  last  part  of  the  world? 
And  even  the  queen  in  me  would  hardly  go 
So  far  off  as  to  vanish:     If  I  were  patched 
And  scrapped  in  what  the  sorriest  fisher-wife 
In  Orkney  might  give  mumbling  to  a  beggar, 
I  doubt  if  oafs  and  yokels  would  annoy  me 
More  than  I  willed  they  should.     Am  I  so  old 
And  dull,  so  lean  and  waning,  or  what  not, 
That  you  must  hurry  away  to  grasp  and  hoard 
The  small  effect  of  time  I  might  have  stolen 
From  you  and  from  a  Light  that  where  it  lives 
Must  live  for  ever?    Where  does  history  tell  you 
The  Lord  himself  would  seem  in  so  great  haste 
As  you  for  your  perfection?    If  our  world — 
[118] 


Your  world  and  mine  and  Arthur's,  as  you  say, — 
Is  going  out  now  to  make  way  for  another, 
Why  not  before  it  goes,  and  I  go  with  it, 
Have  yet  one  morsel  more  of  life  together, 
Before  death  sweeps  the  table  and  our  few  crumbs 
Of  love  are  a  few  last  ashes  on  a  fire 
That  cannot  hurt  your  Vision,  or  burn  long? 
You  cannot  warm  your  lonely  fingers  at  it 
For  a  great  waste  of  time  when  I  am  dead: 
When  I  am  dead  you  will  be  on  your  way, 
With  maybe  not  so  much  as  one  remembrance 
Of  all  I  was,  to  follow  you  and  torment  you. 
Some  word  of  Bors  may  once  have  given  color 
To  some  few  that  I  said,  but  they  were  true — 
Whether  Bors  told  them  first  to  me,  or  whether 
I  told  them  first  to  Bors.     The  Light  you  saw 
Was  not  the  Light  of  Rome;  the  word  you  had 
[1191 


Of  Rome  was  not  the  word  of  God — though  Rome 
Has  refuge  for  the  weary  and  heavy-laden. 
Were  I  to  live  too  long  I  might  seek  Rome 
Myself,  and  be  the  happier  when  I  found  it. 
Meanwhile,  am  I  to  be  no  more  to  you 
Than  a  moon-shadow  of  a  lonely  stranger 
Somewhere  in  Camelot?    And  is  there  no  region 
In  this  poor  fading  world  of  Arthur's  now 
Where  I  may  be  again  what  I  was  once — 
Before  I  die?     Should  I  live  to  be  old, 
I  shall  have  been  long  since  too  far  away 
For  you  to  hate  me  then;  and  I  shall  know 
How  old  I  am  by  seeing  it  in  your  eyes." 
Her  misery  told  itself  in  a  sad  laugh, 
And  in  a  rueful  twisting  of  her  face 
That  only  beauty's  perilous  privilege 
Of  injury  would  have  yielded  or  suborned 
[120] 


As  hope's  infirm  accessory  while  she  prayed 

Through  Lancelot  to  heaven  for  Lancelot. 

She  looked  away:  "If  I  were  God,"  she  said, 

"I  should  say,  'Let  them  be  as  they  have  been. 

A  few  more  years  will  heap  no  vast  account 

Against  eternity,  and  all  their  love 

Was  what  I  gave  them.     They  brought  on  the 

end 
Of  Arthur's  empire,  which  I  wrought  through 

Merlin 

For  the  world's  knowing  of  what  kings  and  queens 
Are  made  for;  but  they  knew  not  what  they  did — 
Save  as  a  price,  and  as  a  fear  that  love 
Might  end  in  fear.     It  need  not  end  that  way, 
And  they  need  fear  no  more  for  what  I  gave  them; 
For  it  was  I  who  gave  them  to  each  other.' 
If  I  were  God,  I  should  say  that  to  you." 
[121] 


He  saw  tears  quivering  in  her  pleading  eyes, 
But  through  them  she  could  see,  with  a  wild  hope, 
That  he  was  fighting.     When  he  spoke,  he  smiled — 
Much  as  he  might  have  smiled  at  her,  she  thought, 
Had  she  been  Gawaine,  Gawaine  having  given 
To  Lancelot,  who  yet  would  have  him  live, 
An  obscure  wound  that  would  not  heal  or  kill. 

"My  life  was  living  backward  for  the  moment," 
He  said,  still  burying  in  the  coals  and  ashes 
Thoughts  that  he  would  not  think.     His  tongue 

was  dry, 

And  each  dry  word  he  said  was  choking  him 
As  he  said  on:  "I  cannot  ask  of  you 
That  you  be  kind  to  me,  but  there's  a  kindness 
That  is  your  proper  debt.     Would  you  cajole 
Your  reason  with  a  weary  picturing 
[122] 


On  walls  or  on  vain  air  of  what  your  fancy, 

Like  firelight,  makes  of  nothing  but  itself? 

Do  you  not  see  that  I  go  from  you  only 

Because  you  go  from  me? — because  our  path 

Led  where  at  last  it  had  an  end  in  havoc, 

As  long  we  knew  it  must — as  Arthur  too, 

And  Merlin  knew  it  must? — as  God  knew  it  must? 

A  power  that  I  should  not  have  said  was  mine — 

That  was  not  mine,  and  is  not  mine — avails  me 

Strangely  tonight,  although  you  are  here  with  me; 

And  I  see  much  in  what  has  come  to  pass 

That  is  to  be.     The  Light  that  I  have  seen, 

As  you  say  true,  is  not  the  light  of  Rome, 

Albeit  the  word  of  Rome  that  set  you  free 

Was  more  than  mine  or  the  King's.     To  flout  that 

word 

Would  sound  the  preparation  of  a  terror 
[123] 


To  which  a  late  small  war  on  our  account 
Were  a  king's  pastime  and  a  queen's  annoyance; 
And  that,  for  the  good  fortune  of  a  world 
As  yet  not  over-fortuned,  may  not  be. 
There  may  be  war  to  come  when  you  are  gone, 
For  I  doubt  yet  Gawaine;  but  Rome  will  hold  you, 
Hold  you  in  Camelot.     If  there  be  more  war, 
No  fire  of  mine  shall  feed  it,  nor  shall  you 
Be  with  me  to  endure  it.     You  are  free; 
And  free,  you  are  going  home  to  Camelot. 
There  is  no  other  way  than  one  for  you, 
Nor  is  there  more  than  one  for  me.     We  have  lived, 
And  we  shall  die.     I  thank  you  for  my  life. 
Forgive  me  if  I  say  no  more  tonight." 
He  rose,  half  blind  with  pity  that  was  no  longer 
The  servant  of  his  purpose  or  his  will, 
To  grope  away  somewhere  among  the  shadows 
[124] 


For  wine  to  drench  his  throat  and  his  dry  tongue, 
That  had  been  saying  he  knew  not  what  to  her 
For  whom  his  life-devouring  love  was  now 
A.  scourge  of  mercy. 

Like  a  blue-eyed  Medea 

Of  white  and  gold,  broken  with  grief  and  fear 
And  fury  that  shook  her  speechless  while  she  waited, 
Yet  left  her  calm  enough  for  Lancelot 
To  see  her  without  seeing,  she  stood  up 
To  breathe  and  suffer.     Fury  could  not  live  long, 
With  grief  and  fear  like  hers  and  love  like  hers, 
When  speech  came  back:  "No  other  way  now  than 

one? 

Free?    Do  you  call  me  free?    Do  you  mean  by  that 
There  was  never  woman  alive  freer  to  live 
Than  I  am  free  to  die?    Do  you  call  me  free 
[125] 


Because  you  are  driven  so  near  to  death  yourself 
With  weariness  of  me,  and  the  sight  of  me, 
That  you  must  use  a  crueller  knife  than  ever, 
And  this  time  at  my  heart,  for  me  to  watch 
Before  you  drive  it  home?     For  God's  sake,  drive  it! 
Drive  it  as  often  as  you  have  the  others, 
And  let  the  picture  of  each  wound  it  makes 
On  me  be  shown  to  women  and  men  for  ever; 
And  the  good  few  that  know — let  them  reward  you. 
I  hear  them,  in  such  low  and  pitying  words 
As  only  those  who  know,  and  are  not  many, 
Are  used  to  say:  'The  good  knight  Lancelot 
It  was  who  drove  the  knife  home  to  her  heart, 
Rather  than  drive  her  home  to  Camelot.' 
Home!    Free!    Would  you  let  me  go  there  again — 
To  be  at  home? — be  free?    To  be  his  wife? 
To  live  in  his  arms  always,  and  so  hate  him 


That  I  could  heap  around  him  the  same  faggots 
That  you  put  out  with  blood?     Go  home,  you  say? 
Home? — where  I  saw  the  black  post  waiting  for  me 
That  morning? — saw  those  good  men  die  for  me — 
Gareth  and  Gaheris,  Lamorak's  brother  Tor, 
And  all  the  rest?    Are  men  to  die  for  me 
For  ever?     Is  there  water  enough,  do  you  think, 
Between  this  place  and  that  for  me  to  drown  in?" 

"There  is  time  enough,  I  think,  between  this  hour 
And  some  wise  hour  tomorrow,  for  you  to  sleep  in. 
When  you  are  safe  again  in  Camelot, 
The  King  will  not  molest  you  or  pursue  you; 
The  King  will  be  a  suave  and  chastened  man. 
In  Camelot  you  shall  have  no  more  to  dread 
Than  you  shall  hear  then  of  this  ram  that  roars 
Tonight  as  if  it  would  be  roaring  always. 
[127] 


I  do  not  ask  that  you  forgive  the  faggots, 
Though  I  would  have  you  do  so  for  your  peace. 
Only  the  wise  who  know  may  do  so  much, 
And  they,  as  you  say  truly,  are  not  many. 
And  I  would  say  no  more  of  this  tonight." 

"Then  do  not  ask  me  for  the  one  last  thing 
That  I  shall  give  to  God!     I  thought  I  died 
That  morning.     Why  am  I  alive  again, 
To  die  again?     Are  you  all  done  with  me? 
Is  there  no  longer  something  left  of  me 
That  made  you  need  me?     Have  I  lost  myself 
So  fast  that  what  a  mirror  says  I  am 
Is  not  what  is,  but  only  what  was  once? 
Does  half  a  year  do  that  with  us,  I  wonder, 
Or  do  I  still  have  something  that  was  mine 
That  afternoon  when  I  was  in  the  sunset, 
[128] 


Under  the  oak,  and  you  were  looking  at  me? 
Your  look  was  not  all  sorrow  for  your  going 
To  find  the  Light  and  leave  me  in  the  dark — 
But  I  am  the  daughter  of  Leodogran, 
And  you  are  Lancelot, — and  have  a  tongue 
To  say  what  I  may  not  .  .  .  Why  must  I  go 
To  Camelot  when  your  kinsmen  hold  all  France? 
Why  is  there  not  some  nook  in  some  old  house 
Where  I  might  hide  myself — with  you  or  not? 
Is  there  no  castle,  or  cabin,  or  cave  in  the  woods? 
Yes,  I  could  love  the  bats  and  owls,  in  France, 
A  lifetime  sooner  than  I  could  the  King 
That  I  shall  see  in  Camelot,  waiting  there 
For  me  to  cringe  and  beg  of  him  again 
The  dust  of  mercy,  calling  it  holy  bread. 
I  wronged  him,  but  he  bought  me  with  a  name 
Too  large  for  my  king-father  to  relinquish — 
[129] 


Though  I  prayed  him,  and  I  prayed  God  aloud, 
To  spare  that  crown.     I  called  it  crown  enough 
To  be  my  father's  child — until  you  came. 
And  then  there  were  no  crowns  or  kings  or  fathers 
Under  the  sky.     I  saw  nothing  but  you. 
And  you  would  whip  me  back  to  bury  myself 
In  Camelot,  with  a  few  slave  maids  and  lackeys 
To  be  my  grovelling  court;  and  even  their  faces 
Would  not  hide  half  the  story.     Take  me  to 

France — 

To  France  or  Egypt, — anywhere  else  on  earth 
Than  Camelot!     Is  there  not  room  in  France 
For  two  more  dots  of  mortals? — or  for  one? — 
For  me  alone?    Let  Lionel  go  with  me — 
Or  Bors.    Let  Bors  go  with  me  into  France, 
And  leave  me  there.     And  when  you  think  of  me, 
Say  Guinevere  is  in  France,  where  she  is  happy; 
[130] 


And  you  may  say  no  more  of  her  than  that  .  .  . 
Why  do  you  not  say  something  to  me  now — 
Before  I  go?     Why  do  you  look — and  look? 
Why  do  you  frown  as  if  you  thought  me  mad? 
I  am  not  mad — but  I  shall  soon  be  mad, 
If  I  go  back  to  Camelot  where  the  King  is. 
Lancelot!  ...  Is  there  nothing  left  of  me? 
Nothing  of  what  you  called  your  white  and  gold, 
And  made  so  much  of?     Has  it  all  gone  by? 
He  must  have  been  a  lonely  God  who  made 
Man  in  his  image  and  then  made  only  a  woman! 
Poor  fool  she  was!     Poor  Queen!     Poor  Guinevere! 
There  were  kings  and  bishops  once,  under  her  window 
Like  children,  and  all  scrambling  for  a  flower. 
Time  was! — God  help  me,  what  am  I  saying  now! 
Does  a  Queen's  memory  wither  away  to  that? 
Am  I  so  dry  as  that?     Am  I  a  shell? 
[131] 


Have  I  become  so  cheap  as  this?  ...  I  wonder 
Why  the  King  cared!"     She  fell  down  on  her  knees 
Crying,  and  held  his  knees  with  hungry  fear. 

Over  his  folded  arms,  as  over  the  ledge 
Of  a  storm-shaken  parapet,  he  could  see, 
Below  him,  like  a  tumbling  flood  of  gold, 
The  Queen's  hair  with  a  crumpled  foam  of  white 
Around  it:  "Do  you  ask,  as  a  child  would, 
For  France  because  it  has  a  name?     How  long 
Do  you  conceive  the  Queen  of  the  Christian  world 
Would  hide  herself  in  France  were  she  to  go  there? 
How  long  should  Rome  require  to  find  her  there? 
And  how  long,  Rome  or  not,  would  such  a  flower 
As  you  survive  the  unrooting  and  transplanting 
That  you  commend  so  ingenuously  tonight? 
And  if  we  shared  your  cave  together,  how  long, 
[1321 


And  in  the  joy  of  what  obscure  seclusion, 
If  I  may  say  it,  were  Lancelot  of  the  Lake 
And  Guinevere  an  unknown  man  and  woman, 
For  no  eye  to  see  twice?    There  are  ways  to 

France, 

But  why  pursue  them  for  Rome's  interdict, 
And  for  a  longer  war?     Your  path  is  now 
As  open  as  mine  is  dark — or  would  be  dark, 
Without  the  Light  that  once  had  blinded  me 
To  death,  had  I  seen  more.     I  shall  see  more, 
And  I  shall  not  be  blind.     I  pray,  moreover, 
That  you  be  not  so  now.     You  are  a  Queen, 
And  you  may  be  no  other.     You  are  too  brave 
And  kind  and  fair  for  men  to  cheer  with  lies. 
We  cannot  make  one  world  of  two,  nor  may  we 
Count  one  life  more  than  one.     Could  we  go  back 
To  the  old  garden,  we  should  not  stay  long; 
[133] 


The  fruit  that  we  should  find  would  all  be  fallen, 
And  have  the  taste  of  earth." 

When  she  looked  up, 

A  tear  fell  on  her  forehead.     "Take  me  away!" 
She  cried.        "Why  do  you  do  this?    Why  do  you 

say  this? 

If  you  are  sorry  for  me,  take  me  away 
From  Camelot !    Send  me  away — drive  me  away- 
Only  away  from  there!    The  King  is  there — 
And  I  may  kill  him  if  I  see  him  there. 
Take  me  away — take  me  away  to  France! 
And  if  I  cannot  hide  myself  in  France, 
Then  let  me  die  in  France!" 

He  shook  his  head, 

Slowly,  and  raised  her  slowly  in  his  arms, 
[134] 


Holding  her  there;  and  they  stood  long  together. 
And  there  was  no  sound  then  of  anything, 
Save  a  low  moaning  of  a  broken  woman, 
And  the  cold  roaring  down  of  that  long  rain. 

All  night  the  rain  came  down  on  Joyous  Card; 
And  all  night,  there  before  the  crumbling  embers 
That  faded  into  feathery  death-like  dust, 
Lancelot  sat  and  heard  it.     He  saw  not 
The  fire  that  died,  but  he  heard  rain  that  fell 
On  all  those  graves  around  him  and  those  years 
Behind  him;  and  when  dawn  came,  he  was  cold. 
At  last  he  rose,  and  for  a  time  stood  seeing 
The  place  where  she  had  been.     She  was  not  there; 
He  was  not  sure  that  she  had  ever  been  there; 
He  was  not  sure  there  was  a  Queen,  or  a  King, 
Or  a  world  with  kingdoms  on  it.     He  was  cold. 
[1351 


He  was  not  sure  of  anything  but  the  Light — 

The  Light  he  saw  not.     "And  I  shall  not  see  it," 

He  thought,  "so  long  as  I  kill  men  for  Gawaine. 

If  I  kill  him,  I  may  as  well  kill  myself; 

And  I  have  killed  his  brothers."    He  tried  to  sleep, 

But  rain  had  washed  the  sleep  out  of  his  life, 

And  there  was  no  more  sleep.     When  he  awoke, 

He  did  not  know  that  he  had  been  asleep; 

And  the  same  rain  was  falling.     At  some  strange  hour 

It  ceased,  and  there  was  light.     And  seven  days  after. 

With  a  cavalcade  of  silent  men  and  women, 

The  Queen  rode  into  Camelot,  where  the  King  was, 

And  Lancelot  rode  grimly  at  her  side. 

When  he  rode  home  again  to  Joyous  Gard, 
The  storm  in  Gawaine's  eyes  and  the  King's  word 
Of  banishment  attended  him.     "  Gawaine 
[1361 


Will  give  the  King  no  peace,"  Lionel  said; 
And  Lancelot  said  after  him,  "Therefore 
The  King  will  have  no  peace." — And  so  it  was 
That  Lancelot,  with  many  of  Arthur's  knights 
That  were  not  Arthur's  now,  sailed  out  one  day 
From  Cardiff  to  Bayonne,  where  soon  Gawaine, 
The  King,  and  the  King's  army  followed  them, 
For  longer  sorrow  and  for  longer  war. 


[137] 


VIII 

For  longer  war  they  came,  and  with  a  fury 
That  only  Modred's  opportunity, 
Seized  in  the  dark  of  Britain,  could  have  hushed 
And  ended  in  a  night.     For  Lancelot, 
When  he  was  hurried  amazed  out  of  his  rest 
Of  a  gray  morning  to  the  scarred  gray  wall 
Of  Benwick,  where  he  slept  and  fought,  and  saw 
Not  yet  the  termination  of  a  strife 
That  irked  him  out  of  utterance,  found  again 
Before  him  a  still  plain  without  an  army. 
[138] 


What  the  mist  hid  between  him  and  the  dis 
tance 

He  knew  not,  but  a  multitude  of  doubts 
And  hopes  awoke  in  him,  and  one  black  fear, 
At  sight  of  a  truce-waving  messenger 
In  whose  approach  he  read,  as  by  the  Light 
Itself,  the  last  of  Arthur.    The  man  reined 
His  horse  outside  the  gate,  and  Lancelot, 
Above  him  on  the  wall,  with  a  sick  heart, 
Listened:  "Sir  Gawaine  to  Sir  Lancelot 
Sends  greeting;  and  this  with  it,  in  his  hand. 
The  King  has  raised  the  siege,  and  you  in  France 
He  counts  no  longer  with  his  enemies. 
His  toil  is  now  for  Britain,  and  this  war 
With  you,  Sir  Lancelot,  is  an  old  war, 
If  you  will  have  it  so." — "Bring  the  man  in," 
Said  Lancelot,  "and  see  that  he  fares  well." 
[139] 


All  through  the  sunrise,  and  alone,  he  sat 
With  Gawaine's  letter,  looking  toward  the  sea 
That  flowed  somewhere  between  him  and  the  land 
That  waited  Arthur's  coming,  but  not  his. 
"King  Arthur's  war  with  me  is  an  old  war, 
If  I  will  have  it  so,"  he  pondered  slowly; 
"And  Gawaine's  hate  for  me  is  an  old  hate, 
If  I  will  have  it  so.     But  Gawaine's  wound 
Is  not  a  wound  that  heals;  and  there  is  Modred — 
Inevitable  as  ruin  after  flood. 

The  cloud  that  has  been  darkening  Arthur's  empire 
May  now  have  burst,  with  Arthur  still  in  France, 
Many  hours  away  from  Britain,  and  a  world 
Away  from  me.     But  I  read  this  in  my  heart. 
If  in  the  blot  of  Modred's  evil  shadow, 
Conjecture  views  a  cloudier  world  than  is, 
So  much  the  better,  then,  for  clouds  and  worlds, 
[140] 


And  kings.     Gawaine  says  nothing  yet  of  this, 
But  when  he  tells  me  nothing  he  tells  all. 
Now  he  is  here,  fordone  and  left  behind, 
Pursuant  of  his  wish;  and  there  are  words 
That  he  would  say  to  me.     Had  I  not  struck  him 
Twice  to  the  earth,  unwillingly,  for  my  life, 
My  best  eye  then,  I  fear,  were  best  at  work 
On  what  he  has  not  written.     As  it  is, 
If  I  go  seek  him  now,  and  in  good  faith, 
My  faith  may  dig  my  grave.     If  so,  then  so. 
If  I  know  only  with  my  eyes  and  ears, 
I  may  as  well  not  know." 

Gawaine,  having  scanned 

His  words  and  sent  them,  found  a  way  to  sleep — 
And  sleeping,  to  forget.     But  he  remembered 
Quickly  enough  when  he  woke  up  to  meet 
[141] 


With  his  the  shining  gaze  of  Lancelot 
Above  him  in  a  shuttered  morning  gloom, 
Seeming  at  first  a  darkness  that  had  eyes. 
Fear  for  a  moment  seized  him,  and  his  heart, 
Long  whipped  and  driven  with  fever,  paused  and 

flickered, 

As  like  to  fail  too  soon.     Fearing  to  move, 
He  waited;  fearing  to  speak,  he  waited;  fearing 
To  see  too  clearly  or  too  much,  he  waited; 
For  what,  he  wondered — even  the  while  he  knew 
It  was  for  Lancelot  to  say  something. 
And  soon  he  did :  "  Gawaine,  I  thought  at  first 
No  man  was  here." 

"No  man  was,  till  you  came. 
Sit  down;  and  for  the  love  of  God  who  made  you, 
Say  nothing  to  me  now  of  my  three  brothers. 

[142] 


Gareth  and  Gaheris  and  Agravaine 
Are  gone;  and  I  am  going  after  them; 
Of  such  is  our  election.     When  you  gave 
That  ultimate  knock  on  my  revengeful  head, 
You  did  a  piece  of  work." 

"May  God  forgive," 
Lancelot  said,  "  I  did  it  for  my  life, 
Not  yours." 

"I  know,  but  I  was  after  yours; 
Had  I  been  Lancelot,  and  you  Gawaine, 
You  might  be  dead." 

"Had  you  been  Lancelot, 
And  I  Gawaine,  my  life  had  not  been  yours — 
Not  willingly.    Your  brothers  are  my  debt 
[143] 


That  I  shall  owe  to  sorrow  and  to  God, 
For  whatsoever  payment  there  may  be. 
What  I  have  paid  is  not  a  little,  Gawaine." 

"Why  leave  me  out?    A  brother  more  or  less 
Would  hardly  be  the  difference  of  a  shaving. 
My  loose  head  would  assure  you,  saying  this, 
That  I  have  no  more  venom  in  me  now 
On  their  account  than  mine,  which  is  not  much. 
There  was  a  madness  feeding  on  us  all, 
As  we  fed  on  the  world.     When  the  world  sees, 
The  world  will  have  in  turn  another  madness; 
And  so,  as  I've  a  glimpse,  ad  infinitum. 
But  I'm  not  of  the  seers:  Merlin  it  was 
Who  turned  a  sort  of  ominous  early  glimmer 
On  my  profane  young  life.     And  after  that 
He  falls  himself,  so  far  that  he  becomes 
[144] 


One  of  our  most  potential  benefits — 
Like  Vivian,  or  the  mortal  end  of  Modred. 
Why  could  you  not  have  taken  Modred  also, 
And  had  the  five  of  us?    You  did  your  best, 
We  know,  yet  he's  more  poisonously  alive 
Than  ever;  and  he's  a  brother,  of  a  sort, 
Or  half  of  one,  and  you  should  not  have  missed  him. 
A  gloomy  curiosity  was  our  Modred, 
From  his  first  intimation  of  existence. 
God  made  him  as  He  made  the  crocodile, 
To  prove  He  was  omnipotent.     Having  done  so, 
And  seeing  then  that  Camelot,  of  all  places 
Ripe  for  annihilation,  most  required  him, 
He  put  him  there  at  once,  and  there  he  grew. 
And  there  the  King  would  sit  with  him  for  hours, 
Admiring  Modred's  growth;  and  all  the  time 
His  evil  it  was  that  grew,  the  King  not  seeing 
[145] 


In  Modred  the  Almighty's  instrument 
Of  a  world's  overthrow.    You,  Lancelot, 
And  I,  have  rendered  each  a  contribution; 
And  your  last  hard  attention  on  my  skull 
Might  once  have  been  a  benison  on  the  realm, 
As  I  shall  be,  too  late,  when  I'm  laid  out 
With  a  clean  shroud  on — though  I'd  liefer  stay 
A  while  alive  with  you  to  see  what's  coming. 
But  I  was  not  for  that;  I  may  have  been 
For  something,  but  not  that.    The  King,  my  uncle, 
Has  had  for  all  his  life  so  brave  a  diet 
Of  miracles,  that  his  new  fare  before  him 
Of  late  has  ailed  him  strangely;  and  of  all 
Who  loved  him  once  he  needs  you  now  the  most— 
Though  he  would  not  so  much  as  whisper  this 
To  me  or  to  my  shadow.    He  goes  alone 
To  Britain,  with  an  army  brisk  as  lead, 
[146] 


To  battle  with  his  Modred  for  a  throne 
That  waits,  I  fear,  for  Modred — should  your  France 
Not  have  it  otherwise.     And  the  Queen's  in  this, 
For  Modred's  game  and  prey.     God  save  the 

Queen, 

If  not  the  King!    I've  always  liked  this  world; 
And  I  would  a  deal  rather  live  in  it 
Than  leave  it  in  the  middle  of  all  this  music. 
If  you  are  listening,  give  me  some  cold  water." 

Lancelot,  seeing  by  now  in  dim  detail 
What  little  was  around  him  to  be  seen, 
Found  what  he  sought  and  held  a  cooling  cup 
To  Gawaine,  who,  with  both  hands  clutching  it, 
Drank  like  a  child.     "I  should  have  had  that  first," 
He  said,  with  a  loud  breath,  "before  my  tongue 
Began  to  talk.     What  was  it  saying?     Modred? 
[1471 


All  through  the  growing  pains  of  his  ambition 
I've  watched  him;  and  I  might  have  this  and  that 
To  say  about  him,  if  my  hours  were  days. 
Well,  if  you  love  the  King  and  hope  to  save  him, 
Remember  his  many  infirmities  of  virtue — 
Considering  always  what  you  have  in  Modred, 
For  ever  unique  in  his  iniquity. 
My  truth  might  have  a  prejudicial  savor 
To  strangers,  but  we  are  not  strangers  now. 
Though  I  have  only  one  spoiled  eye  that  sees, 
I  see  in  yours  we  are  not  strangers  now. 
I  tell  you,  as  I  told  you  long  ago — 
When  the  Queen  came  to  put  my  candles  out 
With  her  gold  head  and  her  propinquity — 
That  all  your  doubts  that  you  had  then  of  me, 
When  they  were  more  than  various  imps  and 
harpies 

[148] 


Of  your  inflamed  invention,  were  sick  doubts: 
King  Arthur  was  my  uncle,  as  he  is  now; 
But  my  Queen-aunt,  who  loved  him  something  less 
Than  cats  love  rain,  was  not  my  only  care. 
Had  all  the  women  who  came  to  Camelot 
Been  aunts  of  mine,  I  should  have  been,  long  since, 
The  chilliest  of  all  unwashed  eremites 
In  a  far  land  alone.     For  my  dead  brothers, 
Though  I  would  leave  them  where  I  go  to  them, 
I  read  their  story  as  I  read  my  own, 
And  yours,  and — were  I  given  the  eyes  of  God — 
As  I  might  yet  read  Modred's.    For  the  Queen, 
May  she  be  safe  in  London  where  she's  hiding 
Now  in  the  Tower.    For  the  King,  you  only — 
And  you  but  hardly — may  deliver  him  yet 
From  that  which  Merlin's  vision  long  ago, 
If ^1  made  anything  of  Merlin's  words, 
[149] 


Foretold  of  Arthur's  end.    And  for  ourselves, 
And  all  who  died  for  us,  or  now  are  dying 
Like  rats  around  us  of  their  numerous  wounds 
And  ills  and  evils,  only  this  do  I  know — 
And  this  you  know:  The  world  has  paid  enough 
For  Camelot.     It  is  the  world's  turn  now — 
Or  so  it  would  be  if  the  world  were  not 
The  world.     'Another  Camelot,'  Bedivere  says; 
'Another  Camelot  and  another  King' — 
Whatever  he  means  by  that.     With  a  lineal  twist, 
I  might  be  king  myself;  and  then,  my  lord, 
Time  would  have  sung  my  reign — I  say  not  how. 
Had  I  gone  on  with  you,  and  seen  with  you 
Your  Gleam,  and  had  some  ray  of  it  been  mine, 
I  might  be  seeing  more  and  saying  less. 
Meanwhile,  I  liked  this  world;  and  what  was  on 
The  Lord's  mind  when  He  made  it  is  no  matter 
[1501 


Be  lenient,  Lancelot;  I've  a  light  head. 
Merlin  appraised  it  once  when  I  was  young, 
Telling  me  then  that  I  should  have  the  world 
To  play  with.     Well,  I've  had  it,  and  played  with 

it; 
And  here  I'm  with  you  now  where  you  have  sent 

me 

Neatly  to  bed,  with  a  towel  over  one  eye; 
And  we  were  two  of  the  world's  ornaments. 
Praise  all  you  are  that  Arthur  was  your  King; 
You  might  have  had  no  Gleam  had  I  been  King, 
Or  had  the  Queen  been  like  some  queens  I  knew. 
King  Lot,  my  father — " 

Lancelot  laid  a  finger 

On  Gawaine's  lips:  "You  are  too  tired  for  that." — 

"Not  yet,"  said  Gawaine,  "though  I  may  be  soon. 

[151] 


Think  you  that  I  forget  this  Modred's  mother 
Was  mine  as  well  as  Modred's?    When  I  meet 
My  mother's  ghost,  what  shall  I  do — forgive? 
When  I'm  a  ghost,  I'll  forgive  everything  .  .  . 
It  makes  me  cold  to  think  what  a  ghost  knows. 
Put  out  the  bonfire  burning  in  my  head, 
And  light  one  at  my  feet.     WTien  the  King  thought 
The  Queen  was  in  the  flames,  he  called  on  you: 
'God,  God,'  he  said,  and  'Lancelot.'    I  was  there, 
And  so  I  heard  him.     That  was  a  bad  morning 
For  kings  and  queens,  and  there  are  to  be  worse. 
Bedivere  had  a  dream,  once  on  a  time: 
'Another  Camelot  and  another  King,' 
He  says  when  he's  awake;  but  when  he  dreams, 
There  are  no  kings.    Tell  Bedivere,  some  day, 
That  he  saw  best  awake.     Say  to  the  King 
That  I  saw  nothing  vaster  than  my  shadow, 
[152] 


Until  it  was  too  late  for  me  to  see; 

Say  that  I  loved  him  well,  but  served  him  ill — 

If  you  two  meet  again.     Say  to  the  Queen  .  .  . 

Say  what  you  may  say  best.     Remember  me 

To  Pelleas,  too,  and  tell  him  that  his  lady 

Was  a  vain  serpent.     He  was  dying  once 

For  love  of  her,  and  had  me  in  his  eye 

For  company  along  the  dusky  road 

Before  me  now.     But  Pelleas  lived,  and  married. 

Lord  God,  how  much  we  know! — What  have  I  done? 

Why  do  you  scowl?    Well,  well, — so  the  earth 

clings 

To  sons  of  earth;  and  it  will  soon  be  clinging, 
To  this  one  son  of  earth  you  deprecate, 
Closer  than  heretofore.     I  say  too  much, 
Who  should  be  thinking  all  a  man  may  think 
When  he  has  no  machine.     I  say  too  much — 
[153] 


Always.    If  I  persuade  the  devil  again 
That  I'm  asleep,  will  you  espouse  the  notion 
For  a  small  hour  or  so?    I  might  be  glad — 
Not  to  be  here  alone."     He  gave  his  hand 
Slowly,  in  hesitation.     Lancelot  shivered, 
Knowing  the  chill  of  it.     "Yes,  you  say  too  much," 
He  told  him,  trying  to  smile.     "Now  go  to  sleep; 
And  if  you  may,  forget  what  you  forgive." 

Lancelot,  for  slow  hours  that  were  as  long 
As  leagues  were  to  the  King  and  his  worn  army, 
Sat  waiting, — though  not  long  enough  to  know 
From  any  word  of  Gawaine,  who  slept  on, 
That  he  was  glad  not  to  be  there  alone. — 
"Peace  to  your  soul,  Gawaine,"  Lancelot  said, 
And  would  have  closed  his  eyes.     But  they  were 
closed. 

[154] 


IX 

So  Lancelot,  with  a  world's  weight  upon  him, 
Went  heavily  to  that  heaviest  of  all  toil, 
Which  of  itself  tells  hard  hi  the  beginning 
Of  what  the  end  shall  be.     He  found  an  army 
That  would  have  razed  all  Britain,  and  found  kings 
For  generals;  and  they  all  went  to  Dover, 
Where  the  white  cliffs  were  ghostlike  in  the  dawn, 
And  after  dawn  were  deathlike.     For  the  word 
Of  the  dead  King's  last  battle  chilled  the  sea 
Before  a  sail  was  down;  and  all  who  came 
[155] 


With  Lancelot  heard  soon  from  little  men, 
Who  clambered  overside  with  larger  news, 
How  ill  had  fared  the  great.     Arthur  was  dead, 
And  Modred  with  him,  each  by  the  other  slain; 
And  there  was  no  knight  left  of  all  who  fought 
On  Salisbury  field  save  one,  Sir  Bedivere, 
Of  whom  the  tale  was  told  that  he  had  gone 
Darkly  away  to  some  far  hermitage, 
To  think  and  die.     There  were  tales  told  of  a 
ship. 

Anon,  by  further  sounding  of  more  men, 
Each  with  a  more  delirious  involution 
Than  his  before  him,  he  believed  at  last 
The  Queen  was  yet  alive — if  it  were  life 
To    draw   now    the   Queen's    breath,  or  to  see 
Britain 

[156] 


With  the  Queen's  eyes — and  that  she  fared  some 
where 

To  westward  out  of  London,  where  the  Tower 
Had  held  her,  as  once  Joyous  Gard  had  held  her, 
For  dolorous  weeks  and  months  a  prisoner  there, 
With  Modred  not  far  off,  his  eyes  afire 
For  her  and  for  the  King's  avenging  throne, 
That  neither  King  nor  son  should  see  again. 
"  '  The  world  has  paid  enough  for  Camelot,' 
Gawaine  said;  and  the  Queen  has  paid  enough, 
God  knows,"  said  Lancelot.    He  saw  Bors  again 
And  found  him  angry — angry  with  his  tears, 
And  with  his  fate  that  was  a  reason  for  them: 
"Could  I  have  died  with  Modred  on  my  soul, 
And  had  the  King  lived  on,  then  had  I  lived 
On  with  him;  and  this  played-out  world  of  ours 
Might  not  be  for  the  dead." 


"A  played-out  world, 

Although  that  world  be  ours,  had  best  be  dead," 
Said  Lancelot:    "There  are  worlds  enough  to 

follow. 

'Another  Camelot  and  another  King,' 
Bedivere  said.     And  where  is  Bedivere  now? 
And  Camelot?" 

"There  is  no  Camelot," 

Bors  answered.     "Are  we  going  back  to  France, 
Or  are  we  to  tent  here  and  feed  our  souls 
On  memories  and  on  ruins  till  even  our  souls 
Are  dead?     Or  are  we  to  set  free  for  sport 
An  idle  army  for  what  comes  of  it?  " 

"Be  idle  till  you  hear  from  me  again, 
Or  for  a  fortnight.    Then,  if  you  have  no  word,  . 
[158] 


Go  back;  and  I  may  follow  you  alone, 
In  my  own  time,  in  my  own  way." 

"Your  way 

Of  late,  I  fear,  has  been  too  much  your  own; 
But  what  has  been,  has  been,  and  I  say  nothing. 
For  there  is  more  than  men  at  work  in  this; 
And  I  have  not  your  eyes  to  find  the  Light, 
Here  in  the  dark — though  some  day  I  may  see  it." 

"We  shall  all  see  it,  Bors,"  Lancelot  said, 
With  his  eyes  on  the  earth.     He  said  no  more. 
Then  with  a  sad  farewell,  he  rode  away, 
Somewhere  into  the  west.    He  knew  not  where. 

"We  shall  all  see  it,  Bors,"  he  said  again. 
Over  and  over  he  said  it,  still  as  he  rode, 
f  1591 


And  rode,  away  to  the  west,  he  knew  not  where, 
Until  at  last  he  smiled  unhappily 
At  the  vain  sound  of  it.     "Once  I  had  gone 
Where  the  Light  guided  me,  but  the  Queen  came, 
And  then  there  was  no  Light.     We  shall  all  see — " 
He  bit  the  words  off  short,  snapping  his  teeth, 
And  rode  on  with  his  memories  before  him, 
Before  him  and  behind.     They  were  a  cloud 
For  no  Light  now  to  pierce.    They  were  a  cloud 
Made  out  of  what  was  gone;  and  what  was  gone 
Had  now  another  lure  than  once  it  had, 
Before  it  went  so  far  away  from  him — 
To  Camelot.    And  there  was  no  Camelot  now — 
Now  that  no  Queen  was  there,  all  white  and  gold, 
Under  an  oaktree  with  another  sunlight 
Sifting  itself  in  silence  on  her  glory 
Through  the  dark  leaves  above  her  where  she  sat, 
[160] 


Smiling  at  what  she  feared,  and  fearing  least 

What  most  there  was  to  fear.     Ages  ago 

That   must   have  been;    for  a  king's  world  had 

faded 

Since  then,  and  a  king  with  it.    Ages  ago, 
And  yesterday,  surely  it  must  have  been 
That  he  had  held  her  moaning  in  the  firelight 
And  heard  the  roaring  down  of  that  long  rain, 
As  if  to  wash  away  the  walls  that  held  them 
Then  for  that  hour  together.    Ages  ago, 
And  always,  it  had  been  that  he  had  seen  her, 
As  now  she  was,  floating  along  before  him, 
Too  far  to  touch  and  too  fair  not  to  follow, 
Even  though  to  touch  her  were  to  die.    He  closed 
His  eyes,  only  to  see  what  he  had  seen 
When  they  were  open;  and  he  found  it  nearer, 
Seeing  nothing  now  but  the  still  white  and  gold 
[161] 


In  a  wide  field  of  sable,  smiling  at  him, 
But  with  a  smile  not  hers  until  today — 
A  smile  to  drive  no  votary  from  the  world 
To  find  the  Light.     "She  is  not  what  it  is 
That  I  see  now,"  he  said:  "No  woman  alive 
And  out  of  hell  was  ever  like  that  to  me. 
What  have  I  done  to  her  since  I  have  lost  her? 
What  have  I  done  to  change  her?    No,  it  is  I — 
I  who  have  changed.     She  is  not  one  who  changes. 
The  Light  came,  and  I  did  not  follow  it; 
Then  she  came,  knowing  not  what  thing  she  did, 
And  she  it  was  I  followed.    The  gods  play 
Like  that,  sometimes;  and  when  the  gods  are  playing, 
Great  men  are  not  so  great  as  the  great  gods 
Had  led  them  once  to  dream.     I  see  her  now 
Where  now  she  is  alone.     We  are  all  alone, 
We  that  are  left;  and  if  I  look  too  long 
[162] 


Into  her  eyes  ...  I  shall  not  look  too  long. 
Yet  look  I  must.     Into  the  west,  they  say, 
She  went  for  refuge.     I  see  nuns  around  her; 
But  she,  with  so  much  history  tenanting 
Her  eyes,  and  all  that  gold  over  her  eyes, 
Were  not  yet,  I  should  augur,  one  of  them. 
If  I  do  ill  to  see  her,  then  may  God 
Forgive  me  one  more  trespass.     I  would  leave 
The  world  and  not  the  shadow  of  it  behind  me." 

Time  brought  his  weary  search  to  a  dusty  end 
One  afternoon  in  Almesbury,  where  he  left, 
With  a  glad  sigh,  his  horse  in  an  inn  yard; 
And  while  he  ate  his  food  and  drank  his  wine, 
Thrushes,  indifferent  in  their  loyalty 
To  Arthur  dead  and  to  Pan  never  dead, 
Sang  as  if  all  were  now  as  all  had  been. 
[163] 


Lancelot  heard  them  till  his  thoughts  came  back 
To  freeze  his  heart  again  under  the  flood 
Of  all  his  icy  fears.     What  should  he  find? 
And  what  if  he  should  not  find  anything? 
"Words,  after  all,"  he  said,  "are  only  words; 
And  I  have  heard  so  many  in  these  few  days 
That  half  my  wits  are  sick." 

He  found  the  Queen, 

But  she  was  not  the  Queen  of  white  and  gold 
That  he  had  seen  before  him  for  so  long. 
There  was  no  gold;  there  was  no  gold  anywhere. 
The  black  hood,  and  the  white  face  under  it, 
And  the  blue  frightened  eyes,  were  all  he  saw — 
Until  he  saw  more  black,  and  then  more  white. 
Black  was  a  foreign  foe  to  Guinevere; 
And  in  the  glimmering  stillness  where  he  found  her 
[164] 


Now,  it  was  death;  and  she  Alcestis-like, 

Had  waited  unaware  for  the  one  hand 

Availing,  so  he  thought,  that  would  have  torn 

Off  and  away  the  last  fell  shred  of  doom 

That  was  destroying  and  dishonoring 

All  the  world  held  of  beauty.     His  eyes  burned 

With  a  sad  anger  as  he  gazed  at  hers 

That  shone  with  a  sad  pity.     "No,"  she  said; 

"  You  have  not  come  for  this.     We  are  done  with  this. 

For  there  are  no  queens  here;  there  is  a  Mother. 

The  Queen  that  was  is  only  a  child  now, 

And  you  are  strong.     Remember  you  are  strong, 

And  that  your  fingers  hurt  when  they  forget 

How  strong  they  are." 

He  let  her  go  from  him 

And  while  he  gazed  around  him,  he  frowned  hard 
[1651 


And  long  at  the  cold  walls:  "Is  this  the  end 
Of  Arthur's  kingdom  and  of  Camelot?  " — 
She  told  him  with  a  motion  of  her  shoulders 
All  that  she  knew  of  Camelot  or  of  kingdoms; 
And  then  said:  "We  are  told  of  other  States 
Where  there  are  palaces,  if  we  should  need  them, 
That  are  not  made  with  hands.   I  thought  you  knew." 

Dumb,  like  a  man  twice  banished,  Lancelot 
Stood  gazing  down  upon  the  cold  stone  floor; 
And  she,  demurely,  with  a  calm  regard 
That  he  met  once  and  parried,  stood  apart, 
Appraising  him  with  eyes  that  were  no  longer 
Those  he  had  seen  when  first  they  had  seen  his. 
They  were  kind  eyes,  but  they  were  not  the  eyes 
Of  his  desire;  and  they  were  not  the  eyes 
That  he  had  followed  all  the  way  from  Dover. 
[166] 


"I  feared  the  Light  was  leading  you,"  she  said, 

"So  far  by  now  from  any  place  like  this 

That  I  should  have  your  memory,  but  no  more. 

Might  not  that  way  have  been  the  wiser  way? 

There  is  no  Arthur  now,  no  Modred  now, — 

No   Guinevere."    She   paused,    and    her    voice 

wandered 

Away  from  her  own  name:  "There  is  nothing  now 
That  I  can  see  between  you  and  the  Light 
That  I  have  dimmed  so  long.     If  you  forgive  me, 
And  I  believe  you  do — though  I  know  all 
That  I  have  cost,  when  I  was  worth  so  little — 
There  is  no  hazard  that  I  see  between  you 
And  what  you  sought  so  long,  and  would  have  found 
Had  I  not  always  hindered  you.     Forgive  me — 
I  could  not  let  you  go.     God  pity  men 
When  women  love  too  much — and  women  more." 
[167] 


He  scowled  and  with  an  iron  shrug  he  said: 
"Yes,  there  is  that  between  me  and  the  light." 
He  glared  at  her  black  hood  as  if  to  seize  it; 
Their  eyes  met,  and  she  smiled:  "No,  Lancelot; 
We  are  going  by  two  roads  to  the  same  end; 
Or  let  us  hope,  at  least,  what  knowledge  hides, 
And  so  believe  it.     We  are  going  somewhere. 
Why  the  new  world  is  not  for  you  and  me, 
I  cannot  say;  but  only  one  was  ours. 
I  think  we  must  have  lived  in  our  one  world 
All  that  earth  had  for  us.     You  are  good  to  me, 
Coming  to  find  me  here  for  the  last  time; 
For  I  should  have  been  lonely  many  a  night, 
Not  knowing  if  you  cared.     I  do  know  now; 
And  there  is  not  much  else  for  me  to  know 
That  earth  may  tell  me.     I  found  in  the  Tower, 
With  Modred  watching  me,  that  all  you  said 
U681 


That  rainy  night  was  true.     There  was  time  there 
To  find  out  everything.     There  were  long  days, 
And  there  were  nights  that  I  should  not  have 

said 

God  would  have  made  a  woman  to  endure. 
I  wonder  if  a  woman  lives  who  knows 
All  she  may  do." 

"I  wonder  if  one  woman 
Knows  one  thing  she  may  do,"  Lancelot  said, 
With  a  sad  passion  shining  out  of  him 
While  he  gazed  on  her  beauty,  palled  with  black 
That  hurt  him  like  a  sword.     The  full  blue  eyes 
And  the  white  face  were  there,  and  the  red  lips 
Were  there,  but  there  was  no  gold  anywhere. 
"What  have  you  done  with  your  gold  hair?"  he 
said; 

[169] 


"I  saw  it  shining  all  the  way  from  Dover, 
But  here  I  do  not  see  it.     Shall  I  see  it?  " — 
Faintly  again  she  smiled:  "Yes,  you  may  see  it 
All  the  way  back  to  Dover;  but  not  here. 
There's  not  much  of  it  here,  and  what  there  is 
Is  not  for  you  to  see." 

"Well,  if  not  here," 

He  said  at  last,  in  a  low  voice  that  shook, 
"Is  there  no  other  place  left  in  the  world?" 

"There  is  not  even  the  world  left,  Lancelot, 
For  you  and  me." 

"There  is  France  left,"  he  said. 
His  face  flushed  like  a  boy's,  but  he  stood  firm 
As  a  peak  in  the  sea  and  waited. 
[170] 


"How  many  lives 

Must  a  man  have  in  one  to  make  him  happy?  " 
She  asked,  with  a  wan  smile  of  recollection 
That  only  made  the  black  that  was  around 
Her  calm  face  more  funereal :  "  Was  it  you, 
Or  was  it  Gawaine  who  said  once  to  me, 
'  We  cannot  make  one  world  of  two,  nor  may  we 
Count  one  life  more  than  one.     Could  we  go  back 
To  the  old  garden '  .  .  .  Was  it  you  who  said  it, 
Or  was  it  Bors?     He  was  always  saying  something. 
It  may  have  been  Bors."     She  was  not  looking  then 
At  Lancelot;  she  was  looking  at  her  fingers 
In  her  old  way,  as  to  be  sure  again 
How  many  of  them  she  had. 

He  looked  at  her, 
Without  the  power  to  smile,  and  for  the  time 

[1711 


Forgot  that  he  was  Lancelot:   "Is  it  fair 
For  you  to  drag  that  back,  out  of  its  grave, 
And  hold  it  up  like  this  for  the  small  feast 
Of  a  small  pride?" 

"Yes,  fair  enough  for  a  woman," 
Guinevere  said,  not  seeing  his  eyes.     "How  long 
Do  you  conceive  the  Queen  of  the  Christian  world 
Would  hide  herself  in  France  .  .  ." 

"Why  do  you  pause? 
I  said  it;  I  remember  when  I  said  it; 
And  it  was  not  today.     Why  in  the  name 
Of  grief  should  we  hide  anywhere  ?    Bells  and  banners 
Are  not  for  our  occasion,  but  in  France 
There  may  be  sights  and  silences  more  fair 
Than  pageants.     There  are  seas  of  difference 
[172] 


Between  this  land  and  France,  albeit  to  cross  them 
Were  no  immortal  voyage,  had  you  an  eye 
For  France  that  you  had  once." 

"I  have  no  eye 

Today  for  France,  I  shall  have  none  tomorrow; 
And  you  will  have  no  eye  for  France  tomorrow. 
Fatigue  and  loneliness,  and  your  poor  dream 
Of  what  I  was,  have  led  you  to  forget. 
When  you  have  had  your  time  to  think  and  see 
A  little  more,  then  you  will  see  as  I  do; 
And  if  you  see  France,  I  shall  not  be  there, 
Save  as  a  memory  there.     We  are  done,  you  and  I, 
With  what  we  were.     'Could  we  go  back  again, 
The  fruit  that  we  should  find ' — but  you  know  best 
What  we  should  find.     I  am  sorry  for  what  I  said; 
But  a  light  word,  though  it  cut  one  we  love, 
[173] 


May  save  ourselves  the  pain  of  a  worse  wound. 
We  are  all  women.     When  you  see  one  woman — 
When  you  see  me — before  you  in  your  fancy, 
See  me  all  white  and  gold,  as  I  was  once. 
I  shall  not  harm  you  then;  I  shall  not  come 
Between  you  and  the  Gleam  that  you  must  follow, 
Whether  you  will  or  not.    There  is  no  place 
For  me  but  where  I  am;  there  is  no  place 
For  you  save  where  it  is  that  you  are  going. 
If  I  knew  everything  as  I  know  that, 
I  should  know  more  than  Merlin,  who  knew  all, 
And  long  ago,  that  we  are  to  know  now. 
What  more  he  knew  he  may  not  then  have  told 
The  King,  or  anyone, — maybe  not  even  himself; 
Though  Vivian  may  know  something  by  this  time 
That  he  has  told  her.    Have  you  wished,  I  wonder, 
That  I  was  more  like  Vivian,  or  Isolt? 
[174] 


The  dark  ones  are  more  devious  and  more  famous, 
And  men  fall  down  more  numerously  before 

them — 

Although  I  think  more  men  get  up  again, 
And  go  away  again,  than  away  from  us. 
If  I  were  dark,  I  might  say  otherwise. 
Try  to  be  glad,  even  if  you  are  sorry, 
That  I  was  not  born  dark;  for  I  was  not. 
For  me  there  was  no  dark  until  it  came 
When  the  King  came,  and  with  his  heavy  shadow 
Put  out  the  sun  that  you  made  shine  again 
Before  I  was  to  die.     So  I  forgive 
The  faggots;  I  can  do  no  more  than  that — 
For  you,  or  God."     She  looked  away  from  him 
And  in  the  casement  saw  the  sunshine  dying: 
"The  time  that  we  have  left  will  soon  be  gone; 
When  the  bell  rings,  it  rings  for  you  to  go, 
[175] 


But  not  for  me  to  go.     It  rings  for  me 
To  stay — and  pray.     I,  who  have  not  prayed  much, 
May  as  well  pray  now.     I  have  not  what  you  have 
To  make  me  see,  though  I  shall  have,  sometime, 
A  new  light  of  my  own.     I  saw  in  the  Tower, 
When  all  was  darkest  and  I  may  have  dreamed, 
A  light  that  gave  to  men  the  eyes  of  Time 
To  read  themselves  in  silence.     Then  it  faded, 
And  the  men  faded.     I  was  there  alone. 
I  shall  not  have  what  you  have,  or  much  else — 
In  this  place.     I  shall  see  in  other  places 
What  is  not  here.     I  shall  not  be  alone. 
And  I  shall  tell  myself  that  you  are  seeing 
All  that  I  cannot  see.     For  the  time  now, 
What  most  I  see  is  that  I  had  no  choice, 
And  that  you  came  to  me.     How  many  years 
Of  purgatory  shall  I  pay  God  for  saying 
[1761 


This  to  you  here?"     Her  words  came  slowly  out, 
And  her  mouth  shook. 

He  took  her  two  small  hands 
That  were  so  pale  and  empty,  and  so  cold : 
"  Poor  child,  I  said  too  much  and  heard  too  little 
Of  what  I  said.         But  when  I  found  you  here, 
So  different,  so  alone,  I  would  have  given 
My  soul  to  be  a  chattel  and  a  gage 
For  dicing  fiends  to  play  for,  could  so  doing 
Have  brought  one  summer  back." 

"When  they  are  gone," 
She  said,  with  grateful  sadness  in  her  eyes, 
"  We  do  not  bring  them  back,  or  buy  them  back, 
Even  with  our  souls.     I  see  now  it  is  best 
We  do  not  buy  them  back,  even  with  our  souls." 
[177] 


A  slow  and  hollow  bell  began  to  sound 
Somewhere  above  them,  and  the  world  became 
For  Lancelot  one  wan  face — Guinevere's  face. 
"When  the  bell  rings,  it  rings  for  you  to  go," 
She  said;  "and  you  are  going  ...  I  am  not. 
Think  of  me  always  as  I  used  to  be, 
All  white  and  gold — for  that  was  what  you  called 

me. 

You  may  see  gold  again  when  you  are  gone; 
And  I  shall  not  be  there." — He  drew  her  nearer 
To  kiss  the  quivering  lips  that  were  before  him 
For  the  last  time.     "No,  not  again,"  she  said; 
"I  might  forget  that  I  am  not  alone  .  .  . 
I  shall  not  see  you  in  this  world  again, 
But  I  am  not  alone.    No,  .  .  .  not  alone. 
We  have  had  all  there  was,  and  you  were  kind — 
Even  when  you  tried  so  hard  once  to  be  cruel. 
[178] 


I  knew  it  then  ....  or  now  I  do.     Good-bye." 
He  crushed  her  cold  white  hands  and  saw  them 

falling 
Away  from  him  like  flowers  into  a  grave. 

When  she  looked  up  to  see  him,  he  was  gone; 
And  that  was  all  she  saw  till  she  awoke 
In  her  white  cell,  where  the  nuns  carried  her 
With  many  tears  and  many  whisperings. 
"She  was  the  Queen,  and  he  was  Lancelot," 
One  said.     "They  were  great  lovers.     It  is  not 

good 

To  know  too  much  of  love.     We  who  love  God 
Alone  are  happiest.     Is  it  not  so,  Mother?  " — 
"  We  who  love  God  alone,  my  child,  are  safest," 
The  Mother  replied;  "and  we  are  not  all  safe 
Until  we  are  all  dead.     We  watch,  and  pray." 
[179] 


Outside  again,  Lancelot  heard  the  sound 
Of  reapers  he  had  seen.     With  lighter  tread 
He  walked  away  to  them  to  see  them  nearer; 
He  walked  and  heard  again  the  sound  of  thrushes 
Far  off.     He  saw  below  him,  stilled  with  yellow, 
A  world  that  was  not  Arthur's,  and  he  saw 
The  convent  roof;  and  then  he  could  see  nothing 
But  a  wan  face  and  two  dim  lonely  hands 
That  he  had  left  behind.     They  were  down  there, 
Somewhere,  her  poor  white  face  and  hands,  alone. 
"No  man  was  ever  alone  like  that,"  he  thought, 
Not  knowing  what  last  havoc  pity  and  love 
Had  still  to  wreak  on  wisdom.     Gradually, 
In  one  long  wave  it  whelmed  him,  and  then 

broke — 

Leaving  him  like  a  lone  man  on  a  reef, 
Staring  for  what  had  been  with  him,  but  now 
[180] 


Was  gone  and  was  a  white  face  under  the  sea, 
Alive  there,  and  alone — always  alone. 
He  closed  his  eyes,  and  the  white  face  was  there, 
But  not  the  gold.     The  gold  would  not  come  back. 
There  were  gold  fields  of  corn  that  lay  around  him, 
But  they  were  not  the  gold  of  Guinevere — 
Though  men  had  once,  for  sake  of  saying  words, 
Prattled  of  corn  about  it.     The  still  face 
Was  there,  and  the  blue  eyes  that  looked  at  him 
Through  all  the  stillness  of  all  distances; 
And  he  could  see  her  lips,  trying  to  say 
Again,  "I  am  not  alone."     And  that  was  all 
His  life  had  said  to  him  that  he  remembered 
While  he  sat  there  with  his  hands  over  his  eyes, 
And  his  heart  aching.     When  he  rose  again 
The  reapers  had  gone  home.     Over  the  land 
Around  him  in  the  twilight  there  was  rest. 
[1811 


There  was  rest  everywhere;  and  there  was  none 
That  found  his  heart.     "  Why  should  I  look  for 

peace 

When  I  have  made  the  world  a  ruin  of  war?" 
He  muttered;  and  a  Voice  within  him  said: 
"Where  the  Light  falls,  death  falls;  a  world  has 

died 

For  you,  that  a  world  may  live.     There  is  no  peace. 
Be  glad  no  man  or  woman  bears  for  ever 
The  burden  of  first  days.    There  is  no  peace." 

A  word  stronger  than  his  willed  him  away 
From  Alinesbury.     All  alone  he  rode  that  night, 
Under  the  stars,  led  by  the  living  Voice 
That  would  not  give  him  peace.     Into  the  dark 
He  rode,  but  not  for  Dover.     Under  the  stars, 
Alone,  all  night  he  rode,  out  of  a  world 
[1821 


That  was  not  his,  or  the  King's;  and  in  the  night 

He  felt  a  burden  lifted  as  he  rode, 

While  he  prayed  he  might  bear  it  for  the  sake 

Of  a  still  face  before  him  that  was  fading, 

Away  in  a  white  loneliness.    He  made, 

Once,  with  groping  hand  as  if  to  touch  it, 

But  a  black  branch  of  leaves  was  all  he  found. 

Now  the  still  face  was  dimmer  than  before, 
And  it  was  not  so  near  him.     He  gazed  hard, 
But  through  his  tears  he  could  not  see  it  now; 
And  when  the  tears  were  gone  he  could  see  only 
That  all  he  saw  was  fading,  always  fading; 
And  she  was  there  alone.     She  was  the  world 
That  he  was  losing;  and  the  world  he  sought 
Was  all  a  tale  for  those  who  had  been  living, 
And  had  not  lived.     Once  even  he  turned  his  horse, 
[183] 


And  would  have  brought  his  army  back  with  him 
To  make  her  free.    They  should  be  free  together. 
But  the  Voice  within  him  said :  "  You  are  not  free. 
You  have  come  to  the  world's  end,  and  it  is  best 
You  are  not  free.     Where  the  Light  falls,  death  falls; 
And  in  the  darkness  comes  the  Light."    He  turned 
Again;  and  he  rode  on,  under  the  stars, 
Out  of  the  world,  into  he  knew  not  what, 
Until  a  vision  chilled  him  and  he  saw, 
Now  as  in  Camelot,  long  ago  in  the  garden, 
The  face  of  Galahad  who  had  seen  and  died, 
And  was  alive,  now  in  a  mist  of  gold. 
He  rode  on  into  the  dark,  under  the  stars, 
And  there  were  no  more  faces.    There  was  nothing. 
But  always  in  the  darkness  he  rode  on, 
Alone;  and  in  the  darkness  came  the  Light. 

[184] 


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